The British Academy

THE NATIONAL ACADEMY FOR THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

REVIEW July – December 1999 The British Academy

10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH Telephone:020 7969 5200 Fax: 020 7969 5300 Email: [email protected]

Web site: www.britac.ac.uk

© The British Academy 2000

Some contents of the Review may also be found in electronic form on the Academy’s web site at www.britac.ac.uk

Cover photograph of Thomas Carlyle by Julia Margaret Cameron By Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London iii

Foreword

The British Academy aims to publish a regular account of its activities by means of its new biannual Review. It will, cumulatively, fulfil the function of providing a conspectus of the Academy’s activities hitherto covered by the Annual Report. This issue of the Review covers events and activities that took place during the first part of the academic year, from July to December 1999. An active lecture programme has taken place, and it is a pleasure to enclose extracts from four of the Lectures, which, it is hoped, give some indication of their range and interest. Space precludes the same treatment being given to all lectures that were given during the period covered by this Review, but it is intended that each of the lecture ‘series’ will be featured in due course. The Survey of English Place-Names is one of the longest-standing of the Academy’s Research Projects. It has been supported by the Academy since 1923, and there is an article on how it has developed from its earliest days. There is also a report on the successful launch of the fifth volume in the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, another of the Academy’s own Research Projects, which was established in 1972.As a contrasting example of the kinds of research activity the Academy is able to support, this issue includes short accounts of work funded under the small grants and conference schemes. This is only the second issue of the Review, and the Academy will be pleased to receive comments and suggestions on how the content might be developed in the future. v

Contents

About the British Academy 1

The President and Fellows President’s Notes 3 Recent Honours 5

The Premises The S.T. Lee Library 6 Pictures and Portraits 8

Lectures and Conferences Report 9 The Pendulum and the Pit: Changing Perceptions of the American Presidency 11 Godfrey Hodgson Thomas Carlyle and Oliver Cromwell 12 Professor Blair Worden FBA From Laurel to Fig: Petrarch and the Structures of the Self 14 Professor Nicholas Mann FBA On the ‘Origins’ of Science 16 Sir Geoffrey Lloyd FBA Computers, Language and Speech 18 Professor Gerald Gazdar FBA, Professor Karen Spärck-Jones FBA, and Professor Roger Needham FRS Indo-Iranian Languages and Peoples 20 Dr Elizabeth Tucker

Academy Research Projects The Survey of English Place-Names 22 Professor Richard Coates Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture 26 Professor Rosemary Cramp

Publications Report 28 Politics as a Vocation 32 Professor Brian Barry FBA Past, Present, Proust 35 Professor Gregory Currie vi

International From the Foreign Secretary 36 Overseas Policy 38 British Schools and Institutes and Sponsored Societies 39

Research Awards Report 42 New Urtext Edition: Beethoven Symphonies 1–9 43 Jonathan Del Mar Reports on Recent Work 46 Programmes for Advanced Research 1999–2000 48

Diary of Events 49

Staff Contacts at the British Academy 50

From the Archive 51 THE BRITISH ACADEMY 1

About the British Academy

The British Academy, established by Royal Officers and Council of the Academy Charter in 1902, is an independent learned society, the national academy for the humanities and the President Sir Tony Wrigley social sciences – the counterpart to the Royal Vice-Presidents Professor J.L. Nelson Society which exists to serve the natural sciences. Professor J.D.Y.Peel The British Academy’s aims, within the scholarly Treasurer Mr J.S. Flemming disciplines it promotes, are: Foreign Secretary Professor C.N.J. Mann • to represent the interests of scholarship Publications Secretary Professor F.G.B. Millar nationally and internationally Chairman of the Professor R.R. Davies • to give recognition to excellence Committee on Academy • to promote and support advanced research Research Projects • to further international collaboration and Ordinary Members: exchanges Professor J.D. Ades, Professor P. Beal, Professor • to promote public understanding of M.M. Bowie, Professor T.M. Devine, Professor research and scholarship G.H. Jones, Professor R.J.P. Kain, Professor A.D. • to publish the results of research. Karmiloff-Smith, Professor J.D.M.H. Laver, Professor W.L. Miller, Professor J.L. Nelson, In pursuing these aims the Academy undertakes Professor J.D.Y. Peel, Lord Renfrew, Mr W. St two principal kinds of activity: first, it represents Clair, Professor K.I.B. Spärck Jones, (one vacancy) and promotes the interests of learning and research nationally and internationally; secondly, it acts as a Secretary Mr P.W.H. Brown grant-giving body, sponsoring its own research projects and facilitating the work of others. The British Academy is a self-governing body of Fellows elected in recognition of their distinction as scholars in some branch of the humanities and the social sciences. 2 THE BRITISH ACADEMY

Sections and The Academy is organised into 18 disciplinary Sections. On election, each Fellow is assigned to Chairmen membership of a Section and may, on invitation, serve on more than one Section.The Sections and their Chairmen for 1999–2000 are as follows:

Section Chairman

Humanities H1 Classical Antiquity Professor J. Diggle Group H2 Theology and Religious Studies The Revd Dr E.W.Nicholson H3 African and Oriental Studies Professor C. Shackle H4 Linguistics and Philology1 Professor J.D.M.H. Laver H5 Early Modern Languages and Literatures Professor M.M. McGowan H6 Modern Languages, Literatures and Other Media Professor A.G. Hill H7 Archaeology Professor B.W.Cunliffe H8 Medieval Studies: History and Literature Professor C.C. Dyer H9 Early Modern History to c.1800 Professor T.C.W.Blanning H10 Modern History from c.1800 Professor C.A. Bayly H11 History of Art and Music Dr J.M. Rawson H12 Philosophy Professor M.A. Boden

1 The Linguistics and Philology Section also belongs to the Social Sciences Group.

Social Sciences S1 Law Professor F.M.B. Reynolds Group S2 Economics and Economic History Professor K.F.Wallis S3 Social Anthropology and Geography Professor J.D.Y.Peel S4 Sociology, Demography and Social Statistics Professor A.F.Heath S5 Political Studies: Political Theory, Government Professor A.H. Brown and International Relations S6 Psychology Professor L.K.Tyler 9

President’s Notes By Sir Tony Wrigley PBA

his is the first ‘normal’ issue of the new presumably be less willing to embark on doctoral Review in that it covers a six-month period, studies. Other evidence in support of the view that Tthe second half of 1999, whereas the first the situation is grave is plentiful, though there is issue, as indicated in its foreword, covered the also evidence to suggest that the grounds for whole of the academic session of 1998–99. concern may have been exaggerated. In recognition of the importance of providing an Council meets twice in the latter part of the year, informed and balanced survey of the situation and in September and November. Inevitably, much of its implications, Council at a later meeting the business of all Council meetings is routine. In authorised the appointment of a committee to September, for example, Council customarily review the evidence and to report. Professor Bob considers the wording of the guidance to be Bennett has agreed to chair the committee. It is offered to Sections and Groups on the conduct of hoped that the work of the committee will be the annual round of elections to Fellowship. Or ground-breaking in another sense, since Council again, the annual letter specifying the terms of the intends to initiate a flow of reports on issues of grant-in-aid given to the Academy by the DfEE, which normally arrives in November, is preceded concern, some of which may be expected to have by a period in which the Academy is able to make policy implications, in a fashion analogous to the the case for additional funding for new or existing reports which the Royal Society publishes on activities, and is followed by the formulation of a questions such as genetically modified crops, or budget which specifies the way in which resources complementary medicine. The graduate studies will be allocated between different Academy report, if all goes well, will therefore be the first in programmes, the process as a whole taking up a a continuing series. significant fraction of the business transacted by In November ALSISS transformed itself into the Council in the course of a year. In addition, Academy (formerly: Association) of Learned however, there are always matters, both important Societies for the Social Sciences. Council had been and trivial, which do not feature regularly year concerned over many months about a after year but arise because of the particular development which was sometimes seen as posing circumstances of the day. a threat to the Academy which is, as the cover of Among the latter in the two meetings of Council this Review states, an Academy equally and in the second half of the year were the question of indifferently for the humanities and social sciences. graduate studies in Britain and the launch of an Some of the statements issued by ALSISS Academy of Learned Societies for the Social suggested that neither the constitution of the Sciences. The former issue was raised by Colin Academy nor the nature of its activities was well Matthew whose tragic death represents a most understood by ALSISS.At times during the period serious loss to the Academy.He expressed concern in which ALSISS was maturing plans for its at the September meeting of Council that what metamorphosis, contact between ALSISS and the had once been a largely British representation in Academy was slight. On the other hand, the each new cohort of research students was constitution of ALSISS suggested that both the increasingly being replaced by a pattern in which composition and the aims of the new body were overseas research students predominated. The substantially different from those of the Academy, probable implications of this development for though with an area of overlap.The range of issues scholarship in the humanities and social sciences involved have been set out in several need no elaboration.There is widespread concern communications sent out to the Fellowship or to that the situation can only become worse when Sections. The names of only four Fellows of the the effects of the change in undergraduate funding Academy appeared in the initial list of Fellows of arrangements, which will cause promising students ALSISS. In general, it appears premature to reach to reach their graduation day carrying a heavy load any conclusion about the extent to which the two of debt, are more fully apparent. They will bodies will prove to be either complementary to 4 PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS

or competitive with one another. The situation succeed in securing enhanced funding for a larger will continue to be monitored closely. research grants scheme in later years. The upper limit of £20,000, though arbitrary, was proposed There were a number of very pleasing having it in mind that this is approximately the developments during the latter half of 1999. The largest sum which does not permit the Leverhulme Trust generously offered to mark the appointment of a research assistant for a full year. centenary of the Academy by supporting the award of a Leverhulme medal and prize ‘for a This year’s Directory contains on the facing page to significant contribution to knowledge and page one an ‘organogram’ displaying the understanding’, the medal to be of gold and the committee structure which came fully into being prize in the sum of £5,000. The medal will be at the start of the 1999–2000 year. The revised awarded every three years after its initial award in structure represents a clarification of the preceding 2002 and will be awarded alternately in the structure as well as embodying the implications for humanities and social sciences, but on the first committee structure of new activities such as those occasion two medals will be awarded, one in each associated with the Public Understanding and of these two main areas of scholarship and research Activities Committee. Experience so far suggests falling within the province of the Academy. that it is working very satisfactorily. One of the most successful and most appreciated Whilst it is true that every Fellow of the Academy of all the Academy’s methods of supporting owes a great debt to its salaried staff for their research has been its small grants scheme. In the dedication to the best interests of the Academy and course of each year, several hundred such grants willingness in many contexts to go far beyond a are made, with an upper limit of £5,000 for any strict interpretation of their formal obligations, it is one grant. Council recognised, however, that, also true that, in marked contrast with many particularly in view of the reluctance of the ESRC academies in other countries, the work of the and AHRB to provide finance for what they British Academy is supported and carried forward would regard as relatively small grant applications, in large measure because its Fellows and Honorary there was a gap in the provision of funding Officers give time and thought to its affairs in a nationally for grants in the range between £5,000 manner which I find deeply impressive and and £20,000, notably for fieldwork studies. heartwarming. It is the best and soundest tribute to Consultation with the academic community took their recognition of the value of the Academy as a place during the latter half of 1999, and support body whose presence is of critical importance to for larger research grants was evident. A new the well-being of the humanities and social scheme for larger research grants is currently being sciences in Britain. I should like to express my prepared, though not at the expense of the small deep appreciation of the devotion to the Academy grants scheme, the funding for which has been of all those who contribute in this way to its ‘ring-fenced’. It is hoped that the Academy will success. PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS 5

Recent Honours

In September 1999, Sir John Elliott FBA was awarded the Balzan Prize in History, 1500–1800. The following is extracted from the nomination submitted by the British Academy.

ohn Elliott’s outstanding qualities as a historian Elliott’s interest in comparative history is reflected are his professionalism and his range. He is in the University of Oxford’s proposed new Jthe world’s foremost historian of Spain but Centre for Atlantic Studies which he is helping to has also extended the study of Spanish history establish, as well as in his recent efforts to broaden to contextualise it in a European and American the geographical scope of the University’s framework. undergraduate history requirements. Elliott’s interest in early modern Spanish history John Elliott’s work has influenced a whole developed early in his career as a student at the generation of scholars, both in Europe and University of Cambridge. In his first two published America. He has not only revitalised and reframed works, which abounded with new questions and the study of the history of Spain, but has set a research topics, he established a new research standard for the study of history itself. agenda by refocusing the prism through which Spanish history was traditionally viewed, and The Swiss–Italian International Foundation Prize E. inserted Spain into a broad European – and indeed Balzan gives recognition to achievements of a cultural, Atlantic – context. scientific, humanitarian or peacemaking nature Elliott’s masterpiece is The Count-Duke of Olivares: worldwide. Since 1961 the Balzan Prize has been the statesman in an age of decline (1986).The result of awarded in the fields of the humanities and social visits to almost every archive in Europe in search science, art and literature, physics, mathematics, of papers, opinions and insights, the volume was natural science and medicine. Each year the Balzan received as a triumph which illuminated Spanish Prize is awarded to four individuals for outstanding history in a way which has not been rivalled achievement in these subject areas. At the present before or since.The success of this volume resulted time the prizes each have the value of half a million Swiss francs. Nominations for awards are solicited in Elliott’s appointment in 1990 to the Regius from the foremost learned societies worldwide, and Chair of Modern History at the University of considered by a General Prize Committee composed of Oxford. His research, of course, continues at eminent European scholars. Oxford and Britain and Spain in America: colonists and colonized (1994) further extends his studies of Further information may be found at the web site European and American history. www.balzan.com 6 THE PREMISES

The S.T. Lee Library

n the British Academy’s new premises at Cornwall Terrace and Burlington House, Carlton House Terrace an impressive area has substantiating the need for a more spacious area to Ibeen set aside for the location of the Academy’s house this developing collection.Through a most collection of books, journals and offprints and for generous benefaction by Dr Lee Seng Tee, an a reading room. The intention of the Academy is Honorary Fellow of the Academy, it has been to develop a valuable workable resource con- possible to establish an outstanding Reading taining the best of new research in the humanities Room and Library, with space for expansion, and social sciences, as well as being a allowing the Academy’s books to be worthily comprehensive record of the proceedings and displayed and accessible to users. Currently some activities of the British Academy and the work of 5,000 volumes are on open display in the shelves the Fellows since its establishment in 1902. and a steady flow of acquisitions may be foreseen in the years ahead. At present the Library consists of books and journals amassed predominantly through Organisation of the Library is at present in a Academy-funded research, gifts from partner formative stage.As a first step books in the central organisations and the generosity of Fellows. The collection have been grouped according to move to Carlton House Terrace has seen a academic discipline so as roughly to correspond considerable increase in the number of with the Academy’s Section structure. This publications received compared with the days of organisational principle suits the requirements at

The new Library at Carlton House Terrace THE PREMISES 7

The Reading Room, adjoining the Library.The room is currently also used for meetings and lectures.A portrait of the benefactor, Dr Lee Seng Tee, may be seen on the far wall

this early stage, but in the longer term a more Academy’s own flourishing publications appropriate and sophisticated system will need to programme (further details can be found on page be implemented, so as to operate in closer co- 28), including certain Academy Research Projects, ordination with the manual and electronic among them the Records of Social and Economic catalogue of stock, now nearing completion.There History, the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, are plans to adapt the catalogue so that it is the Sylloge of British Coins, and the Fontes Historiae accessible via the Internet. Africanae. The majority of acquisitions comes as a result of Another substantial element consists of the research supported by the Academy – the Fellows’ Collection, containing the works which published outcomes of research grants, whether Fellows of the Academy have generously donated. journal articles, chapters in collective volumes, or The aim is to ensure that the scholarship of all (occasionally after some interval) monographs or Fellows, past and present, should eventually be editions of texts. Then there are the important represented in the Library as part of the ongoing publications of holders of British Academy record of British scholarship. It is a long-term Research Readerships, Academy/Leverhulme objective which will take time to achieve. Mean- Senior Research Fellowships, and Academy while a most encouraging start has been made. Postdoctoral Fellowships, whose awards are directly related to planned published output. Other areas of development include the Conference proceedings, arising in part from acquisitions of the publications of other Academies British and Overseas Conference Grants, form with which the British Academy has formed another component of the collection. Publications relationships and partnerships; and the forming of arising from research funded by the AHRB are a comprehensive collection of the publications, also to be lodged in the Academy’s Library. journals and monographs, of the overseas British Institutes, Schools and UK-based Societies which A further category is made up of the publications, the Academy sponsors. often in series, of designated Academy Research Projects, some with a British focus – such as the Once the basic cataloguing is completed, it is much-lauded British Academy/Pilgrim Edition of the intended to form a small Library Committee to Letters of Charles Dickens, or the British Documents develop policies and processes concerning the use on the End of Empire, others contributing to and continued development of the collections. international enterprises of fundamental Soon, it is hoped, the Academy will not merely importance to a particular discipline – for possess a considerable scholarly resource, but be able example, the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae to display it worthily and to make it fully accessible Classicae.And then there are the productions of the to scholars in the humanities and social sciences. 8 THE PREMISES

Pictures, Portraits and Decoration

n February 1999, Council decided to establish a committee whose responsibilities would include oversight of the selection I of paintings, tapestries and sculptures to decorate the building. Professor Margaret McGowan has been appointed Chairman, and the other members are Professor J.M. Crook, Mr J.S. Flemming, Professor C.M. Kauffmann, Professor J.L. Nelson, Dr C.R. Saumarez-Smith (the Director of the National Portrait Gallery), and Sir David Wilson. An annual subvention from the Academy’s private funds has been allocated for commissions and purchases, and to cover maintenance costs. In the months since its formation, the Committee has considered ways in which it could identify possible donors and lenders, and encourage current lenders to extend the number of works that they would be prepared to loan to the Academy.It consulted the Fellowship about ways in which it might best proceed, and received a number of helpful suggestions. Some Fellows have also indicated that they would be prepared to donate works to the Academy, and the Committee would like to thank these Fellows for their generous offers. Members of the Committee have overseen the hanging of fifteen portraits of eminent Fellows. Most of these works are on loan from the National Portrait Gallery, and are hanging in the Cornwall, Burlington or Marks Rooms. The Committee was recently pleased to learn that the Trustees of the Gallery have kindly agreed to loan the Academy a portrait of Viscount Bryce, who was President of the Academy from 1913 to 1917, and this portrait now hangs in the Marks Room. James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce, by Ernest Moore. By Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London With this addition, the Cornwall, Burlington and Marks Rooms should be complete. The Committee is also exploring the commissioned by George IV for Carleton Palace, and also a possibility of obtaining photographic prints from the National portrait of Catherine, wife of Lord Charles Stewart, later 3rd Portrait Gallery of deceased Fellows whom it would wish to Marquess of Londonderry, as St Cecilia, with her son, the Hon. commemorate. Frederick. A number of approaches have been made to various In addition, the Committee has considered ways in which it organisations, including the Royal Collection and Lord could help mark the Academy’s centenary. It has decided to Londonderry’s estate. As a result, the Academy is currently in commission a composite picture of the six living Academy negotiation to borrow seven works of art. All the paintings are Presidents, and Stuart Pearson Wright, the winner of the BP appropriate both in size and in manner for the Council and Mall award for portraiture in 1998, has accepted the commission. Rooms, and the Committee believes that they will all look very fine on the walls of 10 Carlton House Terrace. Two of these Finally, the Committee has also advised the Academy on issues paintings are by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and include a portrait of relating to the decoration of its premises, since the context in George Canning standing at the despatch box, which was which pictures are hung is important. LECTURES AND CONFERENCES 9

Lectures and Conferences

Lectures From Laurel to Fig: Petrarch and the Structures Several of these lectures of the Self will be published in the The Academy’s lecture programme continues to Professor Nicholas Mann FBA Proceedings of the British expand, most notably in breadth of subject matter. Italian Lecture Academy, volume 105, at One of the many highlights of the season was the An extract from this lecture can be found on page 14. the end of 2000 third Annual British Academy Lecture, by Sir Geoffrey Lloyd FBA, who spoke On the ‘Origins’ of ‘Trafficking with Merchants for His Soul’: Dante Science (an extract from his lecture can be found on Gabriel Rossetti Among the Aesthetes page 16).The Academy also contributed a keynote Dr Josephine M. Guy lecture by Professor Bhiku Parekh to the fourth Chatterton Lecture on Poetry and final regional CREST (the Centre for On the ‘Origins’ of Science Research into Elections and Social Trends) Sir Geoffrey Lloyd FBA conference on Social Change and Minority Ethnic British Academy Lecture Groups in Britain, which took place at Carlton An extract from this lecture can be found on page 16. House Terrace. The Westminster Seminars, the Britain’s Changing Ethnic Profile series of talks sponsored jointly by the Academy Professor Bhiku Parekh and the Centre for the Study of Democracy, British Academy keynote lecture at the CREST University of Westminster, continued, with events London conference: Social Change and Minority taking place at the CSD and the Constitution Unit Ethnic Groups in Britain at University College London: lectures in the series entitled Democratic Reform in International Conceptual Tools for a Natural Science of Society and Perspective were delivered by Professor Jim Fishkin Culture (University of Texas), Professor Roger Jowell and Dan Sperber Professor Neil MacCormick FBA, MEP. Radcliffe-Brown Lecture in Social Anthropology Scottish Gaelic Traditional Songs from the 16th to the Ten Academy lectures, listed below, were delivered 18th Century at Carlton House Terrace. Professor D.S.Thomson FBA The Pendulum and the Pit: Changing Perceptions of Sir John Rhys Memorial Lecture the American Presidency Judgments Godfrey Hodgson The Rt. Hon. Lord Mustill FBA Sarah Tryphena Lecture in American History Maccabaean Lecture in Jurisprudence An extract from this lecture can be found on page 11. Thomas Carlyle and Oliver Cromwell Professor Blair Worden FBA Conversazione Raleigh Lecture in History An extract from this lecture can be found on page 12. The Academy’s evening conversazione programme continued, under the guidance of Professor Keynes, Keynesianism and the International Economy Margaret Boden FBA, to stimulate discussion and Alan S. Milward FBA provoke interest. The autumn 1999 conversazione, Keynes Lecture in Economics with speakers Professor Robert O’Neill FBA and with discussants Mr John Killick and Professor Professor Laurence Freedman FBA, was entitled James Tomlinson The Future of Nuclear Weapons, and took place on Artist and Subject in Ming Dynasty China 11 November 1999. Professor C. Clunas Aspects of Art Lecture 10 LECTURES AND CONFERENCES

Symposia

The Academy organises its own programme of Indo-Iranian Languages and People conferences.Two meetings were held during the A symposium was held to mark the centenary of autumn of 1999: the birth of Sir Harold Bailey FBA (pictured right). A report on this meeting can be found on Computers, Language and Speech page 20. A report on this joint Royal Society/British Academy meeting can be found on page 18.

Sir Harold Bailey FBA (1899–1996), elected to Ordinary Fellowship in 1944. Walter Stoneman LECTURES AND CONFERENCES 11

The Pendulum and the Pit: Changing Perceptions of the American Presidency

The following is an extract from the Sarah Tryphena Phillips Lecture in American History delivered by Mr Godfrey Hodgson, Director of the Reuter Foundation Programme at Green College, Oxford, on 26 October 1999 at the British Academy.

n Edgar Allan Poe’s horror story, The Pit He must propose popular reform. He must meet The lecture series on and the Pendulum, the wretched prisoner is the expectations of the powerful interests American Literature or I confined between a murderous blade that represented in Washington. He must choose and History was made possible swings ever closer, and the fiery pit into which he secure the confirmation of the members of his by an endowment in 1960 risks falling if he escapes the pendulum. For years, administration, and show that he can reward his from the Ellis L Phillips students of the American presidency have had a friends and punish his enemies. Foundation. The similar image of the perils that threaten the office. motivating idea came Some of his trading is in public. He makes from Dr Carl Bode, who On the one hand, the pendulum of power has speeches, he appears on television, and orders his was Cultural Attaché at been swinging away from the president and staff to prepare legislation. But he also works in the United States Embassy towards the Congress since the fall of Richard private, face to face, and on the telephone. He in London, and who Nixon. On the other, the presidency sometimes schmoozes, he threatens, he bribes, he rewards. himself gave the inaugural seems on the brink of tumbling into the pit of lecture in 1961. extinction and irrelevance, as it came close to The success of these efforts is observed by doing when Bill Clinton was impeached by the Washington insiders, who are few and discreet, and House of Representatives in 1999. All recent who communicate their judgement of how the presidents have either skirted disaster, like Reagan president is doing to the Washington press corps, at the time of the Iran-Contra scandal, or found who are numerous and extremely indiscreet. Any themselves doomed to near impotence, like president now lives and dies by the journalists’ Jimmy Carter. judgement, as measured in the opinion polls. From a distance, the leader of the most powerful The snag is that the news media are less and less country in the world is a dazzling figure. As a interested in politics.The modern presidency came domestic politician in Washington, however, into existence to lead the United States in a world doomed by a divided government to beat his head of depression at home and war, and Cold War, against a Congress dominated by his opponents, he abroad. Now Americans do not feel their security looks rather different. Bill Clinton has not even is seriously at risk. They do not believe that tried to introduce any substantial domestic reforms government has much to do with their present since the Congress turned down his health care affluence. Even the spectacle of a president on trial reform package in 1994.And now the increasingly before the Senate on charges relating to gross isolationist Republican majority has rejected a immorality and possible perjury left the public comprehensive test ban treaty and the President’s largely indifferent. request for foreign aid. As long as most Americans feel neither threatened A generation ago, the political scientists vied with from abroad nor challenged at home, a minimalist one another to glorify the president’s role in the president, who presides as symbol of peace and American system. He was monarch and prime prosperity, confiding in the people from time to minister, commander-in-chief and leader of time about his dog, his golf scores and his holiday Congress, even – for one romantic professor – a reading, meets their requirements. ‘mighty lion’. Now the reality is different. The Only when the wind rises, and the waves slap president is a day trader. He comes into office with against the hull, will we know whether the new- a portfolio of political assets. But he cannot live off style media president – elected by the media, his political capital. To avoid humiliation, to fulfil evaluated and legitimated by the media – will be at least some of the promises he made in the equal to the task. campaign, he must venture his capital in the political marketplace every day. 12 LECTURES AND CONFERENCES

Thomas Carlyle and Oliver Cromwell

The Raleigh Lecture on History was delivered by Professor Blair Worden FBA, Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Sussex, on 27 October 1999 at the British Academy.One hundred years ago (almost to the day when the lecture was given), the statue of Oliver Cromwell that stands outside the Palace of Westminster was unveiled.To the commemorators his modern standing had one principal cause: the publication in 1845 of Thomas Carlyle’s book Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches. In the following extract, Professor Worden considers the relationship between the two men.

In October 1918 Sir arlyle was not at ease with the protectorate. significant for what he was, for the ideals and Charles Wakefield, His account of it seems to have been qualities he represented, than for what he did. formerly Lord Mayor of hurriedly drawn together. For him the C Not only had the nation failed Cromwell. So had London and later Lord earlier Cromwell, the warrior-hero and agent of Wakefield, offered the divine destruction, had transcended politics. As Puritanism. At first Carlyle, or at least a side of Academy a sum to protector, charged not with destruction but with him, saw Cromwell merely as the most heroic commemorate the reconstruction, Oliver was obliged, as a merely representative of that heroic movement, which tercentenary of Sir Walter mortal ruler would have been, to haggle with itself was the representative – because it Raleigh. From this fund, parliament. Carlyle acknowledges that Cromwell’s represented the best – of England.Yet Puritanism’s the annual history lecture godly policies were pursued ‘with only partial, ‘mad suicide’ after Cromwell’s death showed that was founded. Since 1974 never with entire success.’ The fault lay with the it, like the Long Parliament which it had the subject has been nation, which had not ‘rallied’ to him – a damning controlled, was unequal to its divine task. Having drawn on a regular failure,‘the most significant feature in the history of held up ‘the Puritanic age’ for emulation, Carlyle rotating basis from the an epoch’ being ‘the manner it has of welcoming a acknowledged that it had had its shortcomings. medieval, early modern great man.’ The nation’s rejoicing on Charles II’s and modern periods. They were those of the society from which return proved its unworthiness. Carlyle had earlier Puritanism emerged. Carlyle was never at home supposed, what classical and Renaissance political with the early-modern period. He knew about, theory had taught, that a community will be and (mostly) warmed to, medieval feudalism. He drawn, as by a magnet, to the leadership of great knew too that the French Revolution had brought souls. He found instead that it resists it. In Carlyle’s feudalism’s final and inevitable destruction, and narrative the protector becomes a worn-down that democracy, to which he could not warm, was figure, a subject for pathos and pity, bearing on his inevitably replacing it. It was the non-feudal and solitary shoulders a cause that will not survive him. non-democratic aspects of society, from the Like other heroes of Carlyle, he becomes more fourteenth century to the eighteenth, that perplexed him. He knew from Scottish sociology about the stages of social development. He approved of the energy, industry and ingenuity with which communities advance their social organisation and economic resources. He accepted, what in recent decades had become an orthodoxy, that the English civil war had been in some way related to the rise of a commercial class. He recognised that the ‘fighting’ of the high middle ages had ‘given place to trading, ploughing, weaving and merchant adventuring’, and that that change, too, was irreversible. Yet Carlyle, who rebuked historical nostalgia, succumbed to it. Hard as he tried to bring alive the texture of the society Oliver Cromwell by Samuel Cooper. that had produced Puritanism, its starched ruffs By Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London and fringed breeches and pointed beards, his heart lay with the frugal spontaneity of an earlier age. He yearned for the time when kings were ‘raised aloft on bucklers with clangour of sounding shields’.He LECTURES AND CONFERENCES 13

wanted to think of the Puritan leaders as a author and hero. Repeatedly Carlyle’s own The Carlyle Letters project, continuation of the feudal ideal, as an ‘earnest memories and self-assessment determine the an Academy Research religious aristocracy’, the last of England’s ruling emphases of his narrative.There is the formation of Project based at the classes to combine rank with intellect.Yet intellect impregnable, steadying values during Cromwell’s University of Edinburgh, is itself had assumed early-modern forms which long period of modest obscurity before his entry on publishing The Collected Carlyle found easier to admire than love.The age the world’s bustling stage.There is Oliver’s devotion Letters of Thomas and had been sicklied-o’er with the pale cast of to his godly mother; his hypochondria (for Carlyle Jane Welsh Carlyle thought, trusting too much to words, possessed by always a sign of grace); his rescue from agonies of the self-consciousness of which the most heroic despair through religious conversion.When Carlyle times are free. reaches Cromwell’s maturity he links the solitary burden of his hero’s decision-making with his own If only Cromwell had been born in the middle humbler but no less solitary responsibilities of ages! Carlyle’s imagination links him to William biographical resurrection. Sometimes we can hardly the Conqueror, who sorted out the ‘potbellied’ tell, from Carlyle’s personal pronouns, which of the natives; and, behind him, to the Norse kings two men is speaking. commemorated in Icelandic sagas. Yet even the medieval age cannot contain Carlyle’s hero. He is Perhaps Carlyle himself scarcely knew. Men who a ‘primeval’ figure, his exploits decked with described the public lectures he gave in 1838–40 mythological and anthropological imagery, his reported the manner of his delivery – the struggle place among the ‘sanhedrim of the gods’ of an uncouth, clumsy speaker to give voice to announced by proto-Wagnerian outbreaks of earnestness and sincerity – in terms which thunder, lightning, fire. Carlyle, who set out to strikingly anticipate Carlyle’s own accounts of heroise Puritan society, instead created a hero Cromwell’s delivery. In the Letters and Speeches ‘my beyond society. friend Oliver’ joins Carlyle against the hollow proprieties of classical structure and diction. The * literary indecorum of the book, its offences against How did Carlyle’s book, a work at once so hostile grammar and syntax, its unevenness of pitch and and eccentric to its age, come to be embraced by proportion, its jump-starts and moments of it? At least a part of the answer must lie in the spontaneous combustion, its very warts as it were, central perception of his enterprise: that are vindicated by the features of Cromwell’s Cromwell’s letters and speeches are extraordinary character and speeches which they mirror. documents; and that unlike the customary Professor Worden has been awarded a three-year pronouncements of rulers, which are couched in British Academy Research Professorship to write a new language intended to conceal the character within, biography of Oliver Cromwell. they convey an authentic image of the inner man. The Letters and Speeches spoke to an age eager to explore that subterranean emotional landscape of past minds which the ‘philosophic’ historians of the eighteenth century were now reproached for having missed. Cromwell, unknowable from the jumbled and scattered versions in which his words had earlier been printed, now stood, enthused one reviewer,‘in bodily and mental presence before us. We live, speak, correspond with him’. There was praise too for the artful vividness of the work. ... While planning the Letters and Speeches Carlyle made a note to himself that the battle of Dunbar was ‘one of [Cromwell’s] great scenes.’ In the book it is immortally so. Thomas Carlyle by Julia Margaret Cameron (reverse Though the beguilements of Carlyle’s artistry image). By Courtesy of the should never be underestimated, the magnetic National Portrait Gallery, properties of the Letters and Speeches had another London source too: the intensity of the bond between 14 LECTURES AND CONFERENCES

From Laurel to Fig: Petrarch and the Structures of the Self

The following extracts are taken from the Italian Lecture, delivered by Professor Nicholas Mann FBA, Director of the Warburg Institute, University of London, on 9 November 1999 at the British Academy.

In 1916 Mrs Angela Mond ou may perhaps have heard something complete his one exclusively and overtly offered funds for a lecture ‘ about me, although it is not very likely that autobiographical text. It turns out that in the last series ‘to be on some Ymy obscure little name will have been able seven years of his life (1367–74) he frequently subject relating to Italian to travel far in time and space. And perhaps you chose to look back, in letters and in polemical literature, history, art, would like to know what kind of a man I was, and texts, at the events of earlier years, but it also history of Italian science, what became of my writings, especially those becomes apparent that this retrospection is Italy’s part in the whose reputation may have reached you, or whose coloured by the desire to make of the recollection Renaissance, Italian name you may have heard mentioned ...’ The of things past an artful and coherent narrative, influences on other voice, reaching successfully across space and time, what he several times called a ‘fabula’. Into that countries, and any other is that of Francesco Petrarca, to whom I shall narrative he wove his various works, and as we theme which the Council henceforth refer as Petrarch, planning for posterity unpick its threads with the benefit of our may consider as coming in an autobiographical letter specifically addressed hindsight, we become aware of underlying with the scope of such a to future generations and, like so much else that he structures which hold it all together, interlacing Lecture’. The lectures are wrote, unfinished.The project was an unusual one events, real or imagined, with all manner of texts delivered biennially. for the fourteenth century, and indeed for the which both evoke and on occasions actually Middle Ages as a whole: autobiography was not a constitute those events. common genre in an age less insistent on the value of the individual, however insignificant, than our * own; the few examples that we have, if they are It is plain that writing well and living well are in other than merely formulaic in content, reveal Petrarch’s case inseparable, and linked by a single the overarching influence of the Confessions of fundamental method, which is that of imitation. St Augustine. By this I do not mean what we might call Even in those opening words, Petrarch reveals plagiarism, but imitatio in the creative sense in some of his characteristic traits: a modesty almost which we constantly encounter it in Petrarch’s unbecoming in one sufficiently convinced of his writings. He was deeply aware of the traditions on own reputation to address future readers; an which he depended: thus we find him looking to awareness of the importance of his works as the the authors of antiquity not only for literary genres vehicles for that reputation; an implicit faith in the – from epic to eclogue – or structures – from power of the text – the letter – to reach those to epistle to dialogue – but also, more narrowly, for whom it was addressed. The picture that he thoughts and words, while at the same time he proceeds to sketch of himself is marked as much may imitate them in the reported actions of his by its self-indulgence as by its lucidity, but it is far life. It is rare to find a moment of biographical from complete, for the story that it tells peters out significance which does not have a classical or in about 1351, almost a quarter of a century other illustrious example behind it. To quote but before his death. It would seem that he started to one example, Petrarch’s ascent of Mont Ventoux is write it in the 1360s, and that he continued to explicitly linked to the climbing of Mount Hemo work at it until at least 1371. Yet the narrative, in Thrace by Philip V of Macedon as related by which naturally shows all the benefits of Livy,and is thus firmly located in an historical and hindsight, does not live up to its own promises: for classical context, while its unusual nature is a fuller picture we must look elsewhere.The fact deliberately emphasised by the royal example that that we can, and that Petrarch has left us so much he is following. material for the documentation of his own life, is * probably more significant than his failure to LECTURES AND CONFERENCES 15

The first of Petrarch’s crises is explored in the Finally, after repeatedly falling back in the memorable letter (Familiares IV 1) in which he Lactantian manner, and after explicitly comparing tells how on 26 April 1336 he and his brother his rather unsuccessful method of climbing with Gherardo came to climb Mont Ventoux. The his equally indirect approach to the blessed life, starting point in the text is cupiditas videndi, a desire Petrarch reaches the summit.There, he falls into a to see from the top of the mountain that St meditation, inspired by the impossible panorama Bernard would have called curiositas, and a state of that opens out before him. He looks back over his sin. Petrarch’s account appears highly ‘perduti giorni’: a decade of sins, ambition and circumstantial, and I shall not linger over the desires, and gives his retrospection an explicitly details of the climb, except to say that he and his Augustinian tone by quoting the beginning of the brother set off before dawn from a little inn at second book of the Confessions: ‘I want to Malaucène, each with a servant. Gherardo went remember the abominable deeds that I perpetrated shinning up the mountainside by the steepest but in those days, and the carnal corruption of my shortest routes, while Petrarch kept looking for spirit. I do this, my God, not because I love those easier paths on the lower slopes, being ready to sins, but so that I may love you ...’ climb for longer if the incline was less steep. So that by the time Gherardo reached the upper But the role of St Augustine does not end there. ranges, Petrarch was still struggling some way For it turns out that Petrarch had carried up with below. Finally, though, he caught up with his him (surely not by chance) his copy of the brother, but almost immediately started his search Confessions. He lets the book fall open and reads for easier paths and found himself going down into the first passage that comes to his eyes, in that part the valleys again. ‘Thus, as before,’ he ruefully of the tenth book where Augustine considers the exclaims, ‘I encountered serious trouble: I had role of memory and the function of the images of tried to put off the effort of having to climb, but the past that we store inside ourselves. He proceeds the nature of things does not depend upon human explicitly to relate his experience on the mountain desires, and it is impossible for a body to arrive at top at the age of thirty-two to the dramatic a summit by descending ... ’ conversion of Augustine under the fig tree at the same age, lighting upon a passage in St Paul’s One may pause at this stage on the slopes and ask Epistle to the Romans. what is going on. Scarcely, I think, a feat of mountaineering.We should first note the stamp of Thus Petrarch establishes a clear parallel of Lactantius upon the narrative: in an extended considerable spiritual significance. And if we passage of the Divine Institutes, he deals with the should be in any doubt as to the credentials of his image of the Pythagorean Y, which Petrarch act of imitation, he immediately dispels them by elsewhere associates with the crucial crossroads reminding us that Augustine was himself imitating that arise at crisis points in a man’s existence. – or claiming to imitate – St Anthony, who had Lactantius writes to the Emperor Constantine that come by chance across a passage in the Gospels there are two paths along which all life must which had commanded him to ‘go home and sell proceed: one which leads to virtue and to heaven, all that belongs to you’. The implications of this which is steep and rugged from the start; the chain of imitatio are that Petrarch’s version of the other which sinks to vice and to hell, and which ancient divinatory practice of the random Professor Mann is the at its beginning appears to be pleasant and well- consultation of books, the sortes Virgilianae, has led British Academy’s Foreign trodden, but later becomes becomes steep, rough him to a fundamental turning-point on his Secretary. An account of with stones, overgrown with thorns, and journey: from the sinful desire to see to the healing his first months in office interrupted by deep waters or violent torrents. need to know himself. can be found on page 36. 16 LECTURES AND CONFERENCES

On the ‘Origins’ of Science

The following extracts are taken from the third annual ‘British Academy Lecture’, delivered by Professor Sir Geoffrey Lloyd FBA on 18 November 1999 at the British Academy.He considers below three case studies taken from the ancient world illustrating the different conditions under which scientific investigations were carried out.

In 1998 the Academy abylonian records for the study of the The Chinese distinguished between li fa and tian launched a major new heavens are enormously rich, stretching wen.The first is conventionally translated ‘calendar lecture series, the annual Bback to the second millennium BCE.We studies’, but it included other computational work keynote British Academy find many predictions in the early omen texts, as well, for example in connection with eclipses. Lecture, to mark the move taking the form of conditionals: if so and so (the The latter is the study of the ‘patterns in the to Carlton House Terrace. sign), then so and so (the outcome). heavens’, essentially qualitative in character, but Lectures are intended to including both cosmography and the interpretations address a wider audience But then from some time around the mid-seventh of celestial phenomena thought to be ominous. than the purely scholarly century there was a shift – many of the and to advance public phenomena that had figured in the protases of the These studies were a matter of state importance, understanding of the omen texts, the if- clauses, came to be rigorously indeed of personal concern for the emperor. He subjects the Academy classified and precisely predictable, that is not just was considered responsible not just for the welfare exists to promote. in terms of an ideal pattern but including the of the state, but for preserving harmony between deviations from such. heaven and earth. The so-called ‘monthly ordinances’, yueling, set out precisely what the ruler The possibilities of determining, in advance, when and the whole court had to do to ensure this a planet would become visible after a period of harmony, the music to be played, the kind of food invisibility, or when an eclipse of the moon or the to be eaten, down to the colour of the dresses the sun would occur, offered an altogether new scope court ladies should wear.The yueling texts end the for prognostication. Admittedly much remained account of each month with dire warnings as to beyond that scope.The scribes squabbled not just what will happen – natural disasters and political about what could be predicted, but about what ones – if the ritual is not followed to the last detail. had in fact been observed. One writes:‘[He who] wrote to the king, my lord, “the planet Venus is The heavens needed to be scrutinised for any sign visible” ... is a vile man, an ignoramus, a cheat! ... that might be thought to contain a message for the Venus is [not] yet visible’. But a clear difference ruler, his ministers, or any aspect of state policy. opened up between a style of prediction that That involved, potentially, a vast programme that focused on the good or bad fortune that would was carried out in an Astronomical Bureau result if a celestial phenomenon occurred, on the designated for the purpose. one hand, and, on the other, one that predicted such celestial phenomena themselves. The Bureau lasted for some 2000 years, down to the last imperial dynasty, the Qing. Their more The ability to predict phenomena did not mean purely astronomical performance was mixed. that they were no longer considered ominous. On Among the more notable successes were firstly the contrary, eclipses, in particular, were still calendar regulation, and determining more and considered inauspicious – not that they were more accurate lunar and solar eclipse cycles; and thought to be causes of evil events to come, only secondly, discriminating between what was strictly signs of them. At the stage when the scribes were predictable and what was not. Among the latter, able to predict one (or its possibility), they could Chinese records of novae, supernovae and sunspots and did warn the ruler, who set about diverting are the most complete we have down to the disaster from himself by the ritual of the substitute seventeenth century.If mistakes were made – when king (namburbû). Some wretch who was an eclipse that had been predicted did not occur, considered dispensable was put on the throne, so for example – they were sometimes excused by the that whatever mischance befell would happen to argument that the special virtue of the emperor him, not to the real king, who was addressed had averted the phenomenon.The incorrectness of meanwhile as ‘the farmer’. the prediction was then not chalked up against the astronomers, but for the emperor. * * LECTURES AND CONFERENCES 17

Different conditions prevailed in Greece, where the Babylonians, in the fourth century, Eudoxus students of the heavens did not usually work for made at least a start at geometrization. kings, and could not count on regular support from state institutions. Although I am not one, * usually, to risk generalizations, let me propose the The three case studies I have sketched out suggest following observations with regard to Greek first that science developed very differently in astronomy in the fourth century BCE. First, Babylonia, China, and Greece, both in the nature reputations depended on impressing not a ruler, of the investigations undertaken, and in terms of but your contemporaries, not just fellow specialists the social and intellectual institutions within but even the general public. Secondly,teaching was which the investigators worked.And in some cases one of the main ways of earning a living, and that there appear to be connections (between the work is connected, thirdly, with the institution of the and the institutions), not that I am proposing a public lecture or debate, the main vehicle both for determinist thesis, that the institutions determined building up a reputation and for attracting the the outcome, as if every individual was similarly necessary fee-paying pupils (what may be not too affected by them.That clearly would be extravagant. anachronistically termed the lecture circuit). But then the second point that emerges is the Correspondingly, there was a premium on tension between different factors that may all be originality: you were not going to impress a thought to have had some part to play, a tension lecture audience very much by telling them what that serves to underline that there was no one they knew already. One tactic often used to get factor that just favoured development. The your own, new, ideas across was the demolition of advantages and disadvantages of each system are, in everyone else’s: that favoured the highly critical a striking way, the mirror images of one another. scrutiny of foundations. For your own part, you On the one hand, state support, the creation of had to try to make your own position immune to institutions such as the Chinese Astronomical such criticism: in this context, a rigorous notion of Bureau, carried enormous advantages, offering demonstration was developed and used in fourth- stable employment for a very considerable staff of century Greek mathematics and related inquiries. specially trained investigators.Yet such institutions The key fourth-century astronomer was Eudoxus. could also inhibit innovation – state interests The main feature that marked his work out from determined the agenda – and they ran the risk of that of, say, the Babylonians was that he attempted ossification. geometrical models from which the movements of On the other hand, without such institutions the planets, sun and moon could be derived and so individuals were far more free to choose their own explained. It is pretty clear that he fell some way research programme – and yet have no secure job. short of giving a fully quantitative would-be The rivalries that went with such insecurity in demonstrative model – that was not to be achieved Greece contributed to the radical scrutiny of until Ptolemy in the second century CE – but that assumptions, but just as surely inhibited the was almost certainly his aim. formation of a consensus, the sense of the advantage The contrast with what we know of Babylonian of a joint endeavour of individuals united behind an astronomy is a double one. From the seventh agreed research programme. For all the impres- century, the Babylonians were in a position to siveness of Greek intellectual whizzkiddery, for make some impressive predictions of certain continuity of sustained effort in the observations planetary phases on the basis of observed of the heavens the Chinese won hands down. periodicities, but they had no interest whatever in Professor Lloyd is jointly organising an international geometrical models, setting out the configurations symposium on the nature of Greek and Chinese of the planets and showing how their apparent sciences to be held in July 2000, for which he has irregularities could be seen as the product of a received Academy support through the British combination of regular motions. Much later than Conference Grants scheme. 18 LECTURES AND CONFERENCES

Computers, Language and Speech

A joint Royal Society/British Academy discussion meeting took place on 22–23 September 1999, organized by Professor Karen Spärck Jones FBA, Professor Gerald Gazdar FBA and Professor Roger Needham FRS, who report on the event.

here has recently been a rapid development to the real world domains that underlie linguistic in the use of statistical techniques in both expressions – for example, the real world of Twritten and spoken language processing. airports, airlines, flights, meals, dates and times that This implies that there are important issues to underpins automated phone enquiry and booking address about the interaction between formal systems that operate in this domain. symbolic theories of language, on which language processing has been primarily based, and the new Several papers started from the use of statistical statistical approaches. The meeting held at the data and pushed this past words to capture larger Royal Society focused on this interaction, and was unit regularities and hence higher-level language particularly timely because there is an increasing structure, for example conventional relationships demand for natural language processing systems between turns in a dialogue; others also started that are able to cope with bulky, changing or from the data, but attempted to leverage pattern untidy material, for instance systems that can select capture by exploiting independent linguistic relevant content from text streams or summarise features, constraints or rules, for instance about audio news broadcasts. Statistical methods for word pronunciation. But the complementary extracting patterns from data can help here, and strategy – starting from the rule end but modifying improvements in information technology mean and developing an initial model in the light of that there are now the powerful machine resources observed usage – was also represented. needed to apply these. The papers illustrated a wide range of techniques The central question addressed in the meeting was for capturing statistical regularities and for how best to combine rule-based and statistics- representing language structure, both as exhibited based approaches to natural language. More in discourse and embodied in resources like specifically, it provided an opportunity for the text grammars and dictionaries, in a way suited to and speech communities to exchange their linking data and rules. Again, just as the papers respective findings and ideas. For the text attacked different language levels, they also community, the issue is how to enhance text addressed different subtasks within the scope of a interpretation and generation, which have been comprehensive language processing system, for mainly done using symbolic, rule-based instance from word recognition in interpretation approaches, with corpus-based strategies that to style constraints in text generation. They also would suggest, for instance, that for a particular illustrated the role of statistically-motivated type of text one syntactic analysis rule is more approaches for some application tasks, like likely to be applicable than another. For the speech translation. community, the question is how to enrich speech recognition or production, hitherto predominantly The meeting’s practical implications were illus- statistics-based, with prior knowledge of a trated by the fact that several papers touched on symbolic kind, for example incorporating the ‘unknown word’ problem. New compound linguistic models of syllabic structure and stress words, or new names, for example complex into statistical models for word recognition. company names, are a challenge for language processing systems. But procedures that rely on Some of the papers illustrated the interaction memory, i.e. past data, are bound to fail here, so between statistical data and model rules for speech appropriate ways of invoking rules are essential. processing, whether in recognition or synthesis. Others were concerned with text or transcribed Finally, a number of papers addressed the inputs speech. At the same time, the papers addressed and outputs for work in this whole area, namely many different language levels from the the general requirements for systematically components of words, through intermediate units described corpus data as input, and the evaluation like phrases or sentences, to discourse units like of the results of data analysis, both from a whole dialogue turns, to extended text, and even methodological point of view and as illustrations LECTURES AND CONFERENCES 19 of the performance that language processors ex- discussion that followed each paper was extensive ploiting statistical resources can currently achieve. and invariably constructive.And the feedback from those who attended was uniformly positive: one The forum and format of the meeting, both participant commented that it was the only such prestigious and neutral, were well suited to an event at which he had felt moved to attend every international event cutting across institutional paper, and the only one at which he had no cause affiliations. The fact that the meeting was to regret any of his attendance. More generally,the organized jointly with the Royal Society time was clearly right for such a meeting and the enhanced the interdisciplinary character of the comments made by participants suggest that it will proceedings and was helpful in particular in encourage relevant research, both by those who reaching scientists and engineers, to complement were there and by those who seek out and read the the Academy’s linguists and phoneticians. published papers. Attendance was good and included many younger researchers, as the organizers had hoped. It is, of course, difficult to say whether a meeting The proceedings of the meeting (including reports of the held only a few months ago, in an area in which discussion) were published in April 2000 by the Royal media-friendly ‘discoveries’ and ‘breakthroughs’ do Society, in the Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, not figure, and where the papers have only very Physical and Engineering Sciences Series A, Volume recently been published, has had an effect. But the 358, Issue 1769. 20 LECTURES AND CONFERENCES

Indo-Iranian Languages and Peoples

To mark the centenary of the birth of Sir Harold Walter Bailey FBA (1899–1996) a symposium was held at Brooklands House, Cambridge, on 16–18 December 1999.The symposium was planned by Professor Nicholas Sims- Williams FBA, with the sponsorship of the British Academy and the Ancient India and Iran Trust. Dr Elizabeth Tucker, University of Oxford, reports on the event.

ir Harold Walter Bailey FBA can be described The three-day symposium, which began with a without any risk of exaggeration as one of the birthday tea-party and the First Sir Harold Bailey Smost remarkable scholars of the twentieth Memorial Lecture, delivered by R.E. Emmerick century. Born in Wiltshire on 16 December 1899, FBA, brought together 44 participants from the but brought up in Western Australia without UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, formal schooling, he taught himself one language Russia and the USA. The scheduled sessions at after another, to such good effect as to win the Brooklands House, held in the homely but chair of Sanskrit in the University of Cambridge impressive surroundings of Sir Harold Bailey’s at the age of 36, to become the world’s leading library, were interspersed by enthusiastic expert in Khotanese, the mediaeval Iranian discussions, to which all those present could language of the kingdom of Khotan in Chinese contribute. In keeping with Bailey’s own Turkestan, and to be knighted for his services to publications on Indo-Iranian, the chronological, scholarship in 1960. He was a Fellow of the British geographical and linguistic span of the papers was Academy for over fifty years, from 1944 until his wide, and only a selection can be mentioned here. death in 1996 – which is a record! – so it was highly appropriate that the symposium which James Mallory examined archaeological models marked his centenary should be jointly sponsored that might provide clues about the migrations of by the British Academy and the Ancient India and Indo-Europeans to Asia, and admitted how Iran Trust, the educational charity based in difficult it is to identify an ‘Indo-Iranian’ material Cambridge, which he had helped to set up and to culture across so vast an area. His tentative hypoth- which he had left his prodigious library. esis was that some Indo-European steppeland tribes had passed through the distinctive Bactria- Margiana/Oxus zone, emerging and moving southwards with the same language, but with a different material culture, social organisation and religion. The only paper on Sanskrit was Asko Parpola’s discussion of how Vedic dialect features may be correlated with the movements of Indo-Aryan tribes during the second and first millennia BC. However, Bailey’s Middle Indic interests were strongly represented by three papers on the languages of Buddhism: K.R. Norman FBA on Pali, Oskar von Hinüber on Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, and Richard Salomon on the new materials available for the study of Ga¯ndha¯ri¯. The most archaic Iranian languages present considerable problems, because of the small size of the Old Persian epigraphic corpus, and the transmission of the Avesta via a very defective medieval manuscript tradition. Jost Gippert explained how this manuscript tradition is now being re-evaluated with the aid of present day electronic technology: a digitized database of Three birthday cakes, each inscribed with the numeral 100 in the Sogdian language (photograph: R.E. Emmerick) variant readings can be used to study not only the LECTURES AND CONFERENCES 21 interdependence of the manuscripts, but also Alexander Lubotsky used present-day Ossetic dialect variation within the corpus, and evidence to argue that loans from its remote correspondences between Avestan and Vedic. ancestor, a language of the Ancient Scythians, were present in Old Persian and Avestan. Ivan Steblin- The recently retrieved Bactrian documents, dating Kamenskij discussed the historical position of probably from 342–781 AD, are of outstanding Wakhi in a most entertaining manner, and proved importance for Middle Iranian philology.Nicholas how Bailey’s work is being carried on by Sims-Williams reported on the linguistic distributing a list of 300 Wakhi addenda to Bailey’s discoveries, and Franz Grenet outlined the history Dictionary of Khotan Saka. of the Kidarite and Hephthalite kingdoms that encompassed Sogdiana, Bactria, Margiana and Contributions to this splendidly successful event will NW India during the 5–7th centuries AD. be published in the Proceedings of the British Academy.

The following extract is taken from R.E. Emmerick’s memoir of Harold Bailey, published in the Proceedings of the British Academy volume 101 (see page 29). Incredible as it may seem, despite the fact that Bailey was publishing books and articles at an enormous rate, it should not be forgotten that he was all the time heavily engaged in teaching, much of it voluntary. Many students of the classical languages who had an interest in comparative philology used to ask him to read Vedic hymns with them, which he did with great enthusiasm, an enthusiasm that made a lasting impression on most of them. I do not know whether it was always so, but by the time I participated in these classes, reading texts with Bailey really meant listening to him etymologise each of the words of the texts successively. Grammar and syntax do not seem to have interested him very much, but sometimes he would talk for hours on the form of a single word.At a speech in Queens’ in 1960 he confessed: ‘I have talked for ten and a half hours on the problem of one word without approaching the further problem of its meaning.’ Bailey’s teaching method was the very reverse of interactive and would no doubt be frowned upon by educationalists, but those with sufficient ability could in this way derive maximum profit from his vast resources of knowledge.Word soon got around that Bailey was a mine of information that he delighted in sharing with students and professors alike. Many who came with a simple question were amazed at the casual way in which he was able to produce from his vast library book after book and article after article that had a bearing on the question. Bailey did take care of his students’ interests. He would not only invite them to tea to meet visiting scholars, but was solicitous of their welfare in general. He was for example concerned about how Ratna Handurukande coming from Ceylon would cope with the cold and kept a thick rug on a chair in case she needed to cover her feet during supervisions. I myself was amused to receive from Bailey a letter dated 31 May 1962, in which he wrote:‘I write just to remind you that the Examination Part I (your two Khotanese Papers) begins on 4 June but suppose you will not overlook it. Best wishes, HW Bailey.’ 22 ACADEMY RESEARCH PROJECTS

The Survey of English Place-Names The English Place-Name Society has been in existence since 1923, and has been supported morally and financially by the British Academy for most of these 77 years.The main purpose of the Society is to conduct and to publish a national place-name survey. Professor Richard Coates, President of the English Place-Name Society, outlines the original aims of the project, and traces the paths of new developments springing from the central project.

The Survey of English he brief of the English Place-Name of the Anglo-Saxons until John McNeal Dodgson Place-Names was Society (EPNS) in conducting the Survey established that these names and pagan cemeteries formally adopted as an Tof English Place-Names was quite clear: disobligingly failed to coincide to any significant Academy Research scholars on the project were to collect spellings of degree; such names must therefore be later than Project in 1970. The place-names from ancient documents, arrange the initial settlement phase. Secondly, the names Society publishes the them, deduce the origin of the names and publish came to be seen as having their own interest as results of the Survey the results in book form. This looks like a recipe linguistic objects, rather than merely as historical county by county, and for humdrum work, and it might lead one to indicators. At the broad-brush level, that meant supplementary material wonder why on earth the Survey is not finished. that all names, and not just the names of parishes, and commentary is There were, after all, 39 traditional counties in Domesday manors, medieval farms and hundreds published in its annual England; most of the early counties were published and wapentakes, were worthy of collection and Journal. Further details at the rate of one volume per year, and mostly one analysis. Occasional disparaging remarks in early can be found via volume per county,until the Second World War. So volumes about ‘other names’ in some parish being www.britac.ac.uk/arp why is Lincolnshire projected to take up 29 ‘of no great interest’, and therefore ignored, are volumes, and why have there been important now viewed as completely out of order.The size developments of the original goals? of a county project accordingly inflated in two The pioneers, Sir Frank Stenton FBA and Sir Allen stages, firstly to include field- and other minor Mawer FBA, certainly had an agenda which is names that were of special historical interest or of recognized today as very restrictive.They regarded great longevity, and then to include all field- place-name study as a handmaiden of historical names, using the forms in the nineteenth-century study, and specifically English historical study. Its Tithe Awards as the basis, in order to give the job was to reveal some of the secrets of the fullest possible account of the onomastic intermittently-lit centuries between the coming of landscape of individual parishes. A first the Anglo-Saxons and the flowering of their codification of the field-name data was provided literate culture. Angles, Saxons, and maybe even in John Field’s English field-names: a dictionary Jutes – who went where? Could dialect in place- (1972), and the topic was treated discursively in names reveal anything about this? Were any of the his History of English field-names (1993). Place- lost places mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle name study now intersected with agricultural and by Bede – Fethanleag, Icanhoh, Infeppingum, history as well as national history.At the linguistic Wippedesfleot – recorded in medieval legal level, Dodgson also demonstrated that the documents before their names disappeared for structure of place-names could be far more varied ever, and could their location therefore be than previously believed, for example in that the recovered? Did place-names reveal anything of grammatical case of the first element in English social organization, or about the compounds could be other than the genitive. assimilation of the invading Danes of the ninth Contact with historical and physical geography century? This led the Survey to be a very English and with geology has also borne much fruit since operation, conducted mainly by scholars of the around 1965, and set up new paradigms of English language, mainly in English departments research. In his inaugural lecture at the University in English universities, with some major input of Nottingham delivered in that year, Kenneth from English language scholars in Sweden. Cameron FBA demonstrated that there was a Inevitably, major changes have marked the correlation between names with the element by progress of the Survey. Firstly, some of the old (and other Danish elements) and particular types certainties disappeared. Place-names themselves of surface geology in the East Midlands, especially controverted some initial assumptions.The names recent gravels and blown sand and the fringes of constructed according to the ancient formula X- areas of Boulder Clay. (See the map in Figure 1.) ingas,‘sons of, followers of, X’, like Hastings, were That told us something about the Danish assumed to be original and archetypal settlements settlement, because their farms were on strata that ACADEMY RESEARCH PROJECTS 23

Figure 1: K. Cameron, Geology and settlements in north-east Lindsey (1965) yielded soils of a type markedly poorer than those respectively ‘hill with a summit suitable for a of the neighbouring places with names of English settlement’, ‘hill with an irregular outline’, ‘slope, origin. The Danes had accepted inferior, and bank’, and ‘flat-topped ridge or tip of a probably virgin, land to farm; many must therefore promontory’. Similar increased grasp of the finer have come as settlers under the protection of the points of Old English lexical semantics has been Great Army, and not as warlords or achieved in relation to stream-words, e.g. burna decommissioned soldiers expropriating the ‘intermittent stream, clear stream’ as contrasted English. Place-name study had been able to with broc ‘slow-moving stream with muddy, ill- illuminate history in an unexpected way: the defined banks’, each with characteristic vegetation, Danish settlement of much of Lincolnshire must and with words for valleys, e.g. denu ‘long, steep- have been peaceful. sided valley’ versus cumb ‘short valley with a bowl- shaped end’ and hop ‘confined valley’ (in the north New understandings have been achieved through and west of England and the borderlands). the work of Margaret Gelling FBA and Ann Cole Dodgson has given us a typology of sites named about the Anglo-Saxons’ perception of landscape. with hamm ‘topographically partly surrounded We once knew vaguely that dun, hyll, ora and ofer all land’, e.g.‘land in a river-bend’,‘enclosure’, etc. meant ‘hill’; from their work on correlating name- elements with landforms, we now know that they All these essentially interdisciplinary developments denoted hills with different characteristics, have meant that the county surveys are edited by 24 ACADEMY RESEARCH PROJECTS

scholars with a much keener eye for the evidential does not imply that the earlier classic works were value of names, and for the role of environment in unpopular, but responds to the fact that there is elucidating names, than our great predecessors public demand for regional survey volumes at a had. A further dimension of increasing linguistic level of detail significantly less than that offered by subtlety needs to be brought out. The pioneers’ the classic volumes, and with greatest concentration on names formed in English and concentration on the names of towns and villages. Scandinavian, the staple of English and Medieval Lincolnshire is the first county to be so treated (by departments, has been found limiting. It has always Kenneth Cameron), but the first volume of been known, of course, that the English were Margaret Gelling’s county survey The place-names preceded in Britain by Brittonic Celts, and that of Shropshire is organized in a comparable way.We their language must have impacted on the have a Supplementary series, whose prime landscape. As the Survey progressed westward, the function is to fill in what are now perceived as need for expert appreciation of the history of that holes in the coverage of the classic volumes, the language was felt more and more, and Celticists first being about the minor names of a parish in have contributed greatly to the Survey, especially West Sussex,West Thorney.And finally we have an the volumes on Cumberland and Cornwall, the Extra series, intended for works which are related areas where Brittonic speech held out longest. to place-name study but which are not county They have also maintained a watching brief in surveys at all; the first is a book on English place- other counties.Whereas the older tendency was to names in skaldic verse.This recognizes that the study try to explain the most difficult names as English, of place-names can be enhanced by lights shone it is now normal to experiment with full Celtic from many different directions. solutions. The Survey has recently benefited from much As well as the long-term inflation in the size of the related activity financed by grants other than the county projects – only Rutland has been squeezed crucial bedrock funding from the Academy and into one (500-page) volume since 1943 – we have now the AHRB, and from the preparation of other seen recent diversification in the range of significant research tools. The Leverhulme Trust publications. The current Director, Victor Watts, financed a project called The vocabulary of English has instituted three new series of volumes ancillary place-names, which sets out to update A.H. Smith’s to the Survey.We now have a Popular series.This 44-year-old dictionary of words found in place-

Figure 2: D. Parsons and afnám ON, n. ‘plot taken from common or undeveloped land’. In OWN T.Styles, sample entry from The vocabulary of prose texts afnám tends to mean ‘a share reserved before the general English place-names, division of property’, while in 14th-century Swedish afna-m is found with fascicle 1 (1997): afnám the meaning ‘land severed from an estate’. In English usage, however, the term seems specifically to denote land newly enclosed for private cultivation (cf. Atkinson 1886, Ekwall 1918:195–6). ME often has of-, from OE, and it is interesting that a parallel OE *inna¯m (apparently the same process seen from the opposite viewpoint, a taking into cultivated land rather than from undeveloped land) seems to have existed independently. Moreover, OE ofniman is attested. The distribution of ME ofnam, however, suggests that it is an Anglicisation of the ON term. The term is common in northern minor and f.ns. It is often unclear whether it is used as a name or a common noun. (a) Avena’croftes c.1270 Cu:436 (croft). (b) Ofnam (f.n.) 1160 YN:329, Haynholme 12th YW, avenames (f.n.) c. 1208 YW:2·60, Yanham (f.n.) 1208–49 We:1·75, Lavenum (f.n.)1252 YW:1·161, Ofnumes (f.n.) c.1255 Cu:165, Aynhems 1290 YW, Afnames (f.n.) e.13th Ch:4·198, Little Aynam (st.n. Kendal) 1409 We, Avenham 1591 La. ON nema ‘to take’, ON af, OE of ‘from’.Cf.*inna¯m, inntak. ONP af·nám; MED ofna˘-m; EDD –; OED –. ACADEMY RESEARCH PROJECTS 25 names; the first fascicle was published in 1997 by have outlined. The counties currently being David Parsons and Tania Styles, and the second is published, in multi-volume form, of course, are imminent. (See the sample entry in Figure 2.) At Dorset, Leicestershire, Norfolk, Lincolnshire and the end of the Leverhulme grant, in 1996, the Shropshire; active but as yet unpublished are project was taken over by the British Academy’s Cornwall (apart from a fine dictionary of Humanities Research Board. Its successor, the Cornish-language elements by O.J. Padel), AHRB, is financing a one-year project, directed by Durham, Northumberland, Hampshire and Kent; Richard Coates and David Parsons, called A digital just begun under new editors are Lancashire and archive of the place-names of England, which is taking Suffolk, where the original endeavour had lapsed. the first steps to making a database of place-name Staffordshire is stalled owing to the death of the spellings which will be available and interrogatable editor after one volume had been published; and online. It is hoped to have the original EPNS Somerset enjoys the bleak distinction of being the volumes for Hampshire (unpublished) and Sussex only county that has never had any fully active (published in 1929–30) ready in late 2000, and a editorial attention. All other counties have a pilot collection for Suffolk, constructed from complete published survey of widely varying scratch, well advanced by the end of this year. In degrees of coverage. Most scholars who take on a 2001, we shall see the publication of Victor Watts's county these days accept that it will represent at important new Cambridge dictionary of English place- least a substantial portion of a life’s work and that names, the first new countrywide dictionary since they will require a battery of varied skills and the fourth and final edition of Eilert Ekwall’s disciplinary standpoints in addition to linguistic monumental work in 1960 and its successor from ones. Everything has conspired to make this project OUP by A.D. Mills published in 1991. more difficult and more fascinating, both for the The main line of the Survey continues, but public who regularly fill halls for lectures given by informed by the far-reaching developments that I EPNS scholars, and for the scholars themselves. 26 ACADEMY RESEARCH PROJECTS

Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture

A celebration was held on 14 July 1999 to mark the publication of the fifth volume in the series under the General Editorship of Professor Rosemary Cramp, who here describes the launch party and the new publication.

he publication of each volume of the press next day and a report was broadcast on British Academy’s Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Radio Lincolnshire. Stone Sculpture has been a cause for T The evening began with a lecture by the two celebration, but the publication of the latest authors of the Lincolnshire volume, which volume, Lincolnshire, by Paul Everson and David outlined the conclusions of their own survey, and Stocker, was something of a milestone. It was the also paid tribute to the earlier scholars in this field, first volume in the series to cover a single county in particular the Revd D.S. Davies early in the and as such was the first for which there was one century and Dr L.A.S. Butler in the 1950s and key centre at which a publication event could 1960s. Both were masters of the most essential tool appropriately be held. The opportunity to for research at this period, a bicycle. publicise the series was therefore seized, and a very enjoyable launch party was held on 14 July 1999 at The new volume catalogues nearly four times the Edward King House next to the cathedral in quantity of items logged previously,predominantly Lincoln, including a reception which was of later pre-Conquest date, and it takes a distinct- sponsored by the Academy and arranged by the ively archaeological approach to this large body of Publications Officer, James Rivington. material. On the one hand, the ubiquitous nature of tenth-century and later funerary sculpture The event was linked to the annual residential allows it to be used as evidence both for the meeting of Lincoln Cathedral’s Fabric Advisory development of local graveyards and also for the Committee and was attended by the Dean of chronology and context of the parochial system in Lincoln the Very Reverend A.F. Knight, the Lord the region. On the other hand, the quantity of Lieutenant of Lincolnshire Mrs B. Cracroft-Ely, sculpture with various repetitive features permits and her honour the Mayor of Lincoln Councillor the identification of separate groups of L. Woolley, as well as many distinguished scholars standardised products, mainly grave-covers and of Lincolnshire’s history and archaeology and of grave-markers. These have identifiable quarry Anglo-Saxon sculpture, including several Fellows sources and distinctive distributions, and were of the Academy, and members of the project’s predominantly transported by waterways. steering committee which oversees the Academy’s Part of a grave-cover from Burton investment in this important area of scholarship. The restricted nature of these distributions can Pedwardine, Lincolnshire, with The event was prominently reported in the local best be explained in relation to political bull’s head motif developments in the territory of the Danelaw in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Earlier Anglo- Scandinavian forerunners of these patterns can also be identified – in Lincoln and the Lindsey region with links either to the Viking kingdom ofYork or the Scandinavian homelands, in the south of the county with a different local character characteristic of the Trent valley. By contrast, pre-

The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture was established as an Academy Research Project in 1972. Its aims are to publish fully-illustrated catalogues of Anglo-Saxon carved stones, with discussions of their context and significance. The series is published by the Academy. Further details of the work of the Committee and the volumes published by the Academy may be found via www.britac.ac.uk/arp ACADEMY RESEARCH PROJECTS 27

Viking items, though of high artistic quality, are David Wilson FBA were thanked for the support rare and specialised in location and function. they have lent since the project was established. At the reception afterwards a short presentation Professor Martin Biddle FBA rounded off the occasion was given, reviewing the progress of the Corpus to by proposing congratulations to Professor Cramp for date. Those who have served on the Academy’s guiding the Corpus successfully through the first five steering committee under the chairmanship of Sir volumes.

Barton-upon-Humber Winterton Thornton Curtis

Crowle Stallingborough

Broughton Laceby Humberston

Holton North Kelsey Cabourne Beelsby le Clay Caistor Redbourne Nettleton North Northorpe Hawerby Thoresby Thornton le Moor Conisholme Blyborough Corringham Glentham Theddlethorpe Glentworth Toft next Newton St Helen Manby Gayton le Wold Little Carlton Stow Cammeringham Marton Hackthorn Tathwell Brattleby Aisthorpe

Saxilby Langton by Wragby Cumberworth Lincoln

Bardney Bracebridge Lusby Ingoldmells Eagle Mavis Enderby

Miningsby Thurlby Harmston Coleby Bassingham Kirkby Green Rowston Friskney Brant Broughton Brauncewell Ruskington Fulbeck South Cranwell Kyme Hough- North Ewerby Land over 61m on-the-Hill Normanton Rauceby Hougham Howell Kirkby Laythorpe Ancaster Sleaford Wilsford Great Hale Burton Pedwardine 5 05 West Allington Syston Swarby mls 505 10 Bicker Barrowby Scott Willoughby km Ropsley Sempringham Little Ponton Gosberton Dowsby Stoke Rochford Kirkby Underwood Burton Coggles Elloe Stone Colsterworth Whaplode Stainby North Witham Edenham Creeton Castle Bytham

Carlby

Market Deeping Crowland Tallington

Figure 1 (below): Sites with sculpture in Lincolnshire 28 PUBLICATIONS

Publications All the British Academy publications listed here are distributed by Oxford University Press.

The British Study of Politics in the Twentieth Century was launched at a reception held at the Academy on 13 October. For an extract from Professor Barry’s concluding chapter, see page 32.

An extract from one of the essays in The Arguments of Time can be found on page 35.

British Academy ‘Centenary Monographs’ Academy. The authors trace the growing professionalism of political science in the second half of the century, while not neglecting earlier The most significant event has been the publication of the first contributions to the field by historians, philosophers, lawyers, politicians two British Academy ‘Centenary Monographs’. The British and journalists. Academy was established by Royal Charter in 1902 and therefore Specialists in the various branches of the discipline provide a critical will be celebrating its Centenary in 2002 (for more information appraisal of work in areas where British scholarship has been important. on the foundation of the Academy, see page 51). As part of a Their chapters go beyond disciplinary history to provide interpretations programme of events leading up to the Centenary, the Academy of the interplay between the tumultuous political developments of the century and the framework of analysis for interpreting political life. is publishing a series of major monographs to demonstrate the vitality of British scholarship at the start of the new millennium. The distinctive strength of political theory and the history of political thought in British universities is examined, and attention is paid to The subject spread of the Centenary monographs will reflect the influential institutional analyses, both comparatively and in Britain, as Academy’s wide coverage of the humanities and social sciences. well as to the study of political parties, interests, elections and public Some volumes will consider developments in scholarship in the opinion. The innovative contribution of British authors to analyses of 20th century, while others will look forward to the challenges of nationalism, totalitarianism and authoritarianism is dissected and an the next. Some monographs will simply take the opportunity to influential British approach to the study of international relations scrutinized. Broad-ranging introductory and concluding chapters address a topic of current relevance. provide overviews of the development of Politics as an academic discipline in Britain and assess past trends and future prospects. The British Study of Politics in the Twentieth Century, edited by Jack Hayward FBA, Brian Barry FBA & Archie Brown FBA. ISBN 0- The Arguments of Time, edited by Jeremy Butterfield FBA. ISBN 0- 19-726191-4 19-726207-4 This is a timely reminder of the extent and influence of a specifically This breaks new ground within the philosophy of time, by showing that British contribution to political thought and to the understanding of it bears on such topics as memory and the experience of time in political processes and policy outcomes. It is a deliberate effort of literature, quantum gravity research in physics, and the control of human intellectual self-consciousness to improve British political scientists’ action in psychology. Nine essays by outstanding senior figures from understanding of their own discipline. The team of contributors is Britain, the Americas, and Australia – commissioned on the initiative of exceptionally distinguished, mainly senior people in their fields but the Philosophy section of the British Academy – address fundamental including several outstanding younger scholars. questions about time in philosophy, physics, linguistics, and psychology. The British study of politics throughout the twentieth century is charted Are there facts about the future? Could we affect the past? In physics, and interpreted for the first time by a team of major scholars brought general relativity and quantum theory give contradictory treatments of together on the initiative of the Political Studies section of the British time. So in the current search for a theory of quantum gravity, which PUBLICATIONS 29

should give way: general relativity or quantum theory? In linguistics and created by the French Revolution without having to do much more psychology, how does our language represent time, and how do our than take in the occasional sail and flog the odd mutineer. Germany was minds keep track of it? certainly revolutionised after 1789, not least by the destruction of the Holy Roman Empire, but it was change imposed from outside, not The period July–December 1999 was a very busy one for the generated from within by domestic subversion. Indeed, the various Academy’s publishing programme. In addition to the two forms of exploitation suffered at the hands of the French volumes listed above, a further 11 volumes were published. Revolutionaries and their heir, Napoleon, only served to strengthen a long-established German preference for gradual change through reform. Though violent and rapid change may be more dramatic than gradual Proceedings of the British Academy adaptation, this volume reveals that the study of the latter stimulates just World Prehistory: Studies in Memory of Grahame Clark, edited as much intellectual excitement. by John Coles FBA, Robert Bewley & Paul Mellars FBA. Proceedings of The volume arises from an Academy conference held in September 1997. the British Academy 99 ISBN 0-19-726196-5 Proceedings of the British Academy 101: 1998 Lectures and Sir Grahame Clark (died 1995) was the foremost figure in world Memoirs ISBN 0-19-726209-0 prehistoric studies – indeed, he invented the idea of a ‘world prehistory’. He established pioneering research projects, sending out his students to Contains the texts of 12 British Academy lectures (on literature, history, all corners of the world. This volume presents new developments and economics and politics), and 12 obituaries of Fellows of the Academy. perspectives in Clark’s major fields of interest, as well as reflecting on his An extract from the obituary of Sir Harold Bailey can be found on page 21 own contribution to archaeological scholarship. Many of the eminent authors are former students or colleagues, from as far afield as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States. The topics covered Postdoctoral Fellowship Monographs range from the origins of our own genus in Africa around two million years ago, to the issues of the Later Stone Age and the emergence of The Academy operates a scheme for the selective publication of civilization in Northern Europe, Anatolia, and south-east Asia. The monographs arising from its British Academy Postdoctoral volume arises from an Academy conference held in November 1997. Fellowships – to assist individual PDFs by providing a prestigious Reform in Great Britain and Germany 1750–1850, edited by publishing opportunity that will be seen as a mark of excellence, T.C.W.Blanning FBA & Peter Wende. Proceedings of the British Academy and to act as a showcase for the PDF scheme itself. The Post- 100 ISBN 0-19-726201-5 doctoral Fellowship Monographs series is now well established, These nine papers, by leading British, Irish and German scholars, show with three more volumes appearing at the end of 1999: how and why, in a crucial period of history, these countries preferred change that was gradual and consensual to radical and violent The Manuscripts of Early Norman England (c. 1066–1130),by revolution. In the study of late eighteenth-century Europe the concept Richard Gameson. ISBN 0-19-726190-6. of ‘reform’, both in theory and in practice, has been neglected compared This will be the standard work of reference for the field for many to the attention lavished on its more glamorous relation ‘revolution’.Yet years to come. It provides for the first time a comprehensive guide to it was reform not revolution which characterised the experience of both the books, texts and literary culture of England in the generations after Great Britain and Germany from 1750 to 1850. This volume takes a the Norman Conquest. It includes succinct descriptions of all the comparative approach to shed all manner of new light on old problems. surviving manuscripts, complemented by an alphabetical listing of the The British ship of state sailed untroubled through the turbulence texts there represented; while a separate inventory details the texts 30 PUBLICATIONS

known from book-lists.A substantial introduction discusses the growth understanding of the Anglo-Scandinavian period in this region. of English book collections as a whole during this period, and surveys Illustrated by excellent photographs, the catalogue contains fresh the intellectual interests attested by the texts that were collected. discussions of such famous carvings as Crowle, Edenham, and South Twenty-four plates illustrate palaeographical developments.This is a Kyme. It also includes many newly discovered pieces and important re- vital source for the study of early medieval cultural history. evaluations of others. Several major groups of sculpture are identified, extending across the East Midlands in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The Cut: Reading Bataille’s Histoire de l’œil, by Patrick ffrench. The authors discuss how this material provides evidence for settlement ISBN 0-19-726200-7 and administrative structures, both lay and clerical, in this part of the Patrick ffrench provides an imaginative theoretical reading of an Danelaw. unsettling masterpiece by the French writer Georges Bataille, recognised now as a major figure in twentieth-century French literature. The The volume was launched at a reception in Lincoln on 14 July. See obscene, erotic and disturbing text Histoire de l’œil (1928), is a traumatic page 26 event in the history of modernity. The structure, mechanisms, and English Episcopal Acta 15: London 1076–1187 violence of Bataille’s text are analysed in detail, as is the role it has already , edited by Falko played in critical theory. Dr ffrench seeks to position Histoire de l’œil in Neininger. ISBN 0-19-726179-5 its true context, as a key moment in the culture of the first half of the London was the largest city in the Anglo-Norman empire, and its 20th century. bishops were therefore figures of the utmost importance.The 250 acta recorded in this volume testify to their role in the development of Kuwait 1950–1965: Britain, the al-Sabah, and Oil, by Simon C. episcopal government and its documentation. One of the most Smith. ISBN 0-19-726197-3 significant figures of the twelfth century was Bishop Gilbert Foliot Based on a wide range of official and private papers, this study examines (1163–1187), who tangled famously with Thomas Becket.The volume the development of relations between Kuwait and Britain during the contains important additions and corrections to Morey & Brooke’s reign of Shaikh Abdullah Salim – a period of spectacular expansion in edition of Foliot’s correspondence and updates our understanding of the oil production. Of particular concern are Kuwait’s role in the post-war man and his acta in the light of the latest scholarship. British economy, the survival of the al-Sabah ruling family in an era of unprecedented change, and the interaction of Kuwait with the Arab English Episcopal Acta 18: Salisbury 1078–1217, edited by B.R. world.The volume is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand Kemp. ISBN 0-19-726198-1 the background to the politics of the Gulf. This latest EEA volume publishes the acta of the bishops of Salisbury 1078–1217, during which period the see was located at Old Sarum.This Academy Research Project volumes distinguished sequence of five bishops includes Roger, Henry I’s chief minister, and Hubert Walter, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury and Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture V: Lincolnshire,by justiciar.The acta contain a wealth of fascinating detail not only about Paul Everson & David Stocker. ISBN 0-19-726188-4 the churches, monasteries and clergy of the diocese (covering Berkshire, The wealth of pre-Conquest sculpture in Lincolnshire, recorded here Dorset and Wiltshire), but also about a great variety of legal, definitively for the first time, forms a crucial source for our administrative, social, economic and cultural matters of the period. PUBLICATIONS 31

Other volumes approaches.This volume provides a unique overview of IT across a wide range of disciplines in both the humanities – archaeology, history (art, Translating the Bible: The Ethiopic Version of the Old cultural, demographic, social), linguistics, music, philosophy and theatre Testament, by Michael A. Knibb FBA. Schweich Lectures on studies – and the social sciences – economics, human geography, law, Biblical Archaeology 1995. ISBN 0-19-726194-9 psychology, social anthropology and sociology.The volume provides a benchmark of the situation in the late 1990s from which future progress These Schweich Lectures tackle the origin, history, and character of the can be assessed. Ethiopic translation of the Old Testament.This version is of fundamental importance both in terms of the influence it has exerted on Ethiopian life and culture, and as one of the ‘daughter versions’ of the Greek Old Testament – yet much remains unknown or uncertain about it. Professor Knibb argues that, notwithstanding the criticisms that have been made of it, the traditional view of the history of the Ethiopic version – translation from the Septuagint in the fifth–sixth century,revision on the basis of the Syriac-based Arabic texts in the fourteenth century, and a further revision in the fifteenth or sixteenth century on the basis of the Hebrew – is broadly correct, but that this view is in need of development and refinement in many details.The majority of the book is devoted to a study of the mode of translation, to ‘translation technique’.There is a discussion of general aspects of the translation and syntactical issues, and the question of consistency and diversity in the translation-equivalents that are used is also addressed. Many of these issues are of general relevance to other ancient Bible translations.

Information Technology and Scholarship: Applications in the Humanities and Social Sciences, edited by Terry Coppock FBA. ISBN 0-19-726205-8 The impact of information technology is reviewed by scholars who are leading pioneers in the application of that technology to research in their disciplines. From both a general appreciation of their fields, and from their own personal research, they discuss whether this impact amounts to a paradigm shift, posing new research themes and new 32 PUBLICATIONS

Politics as a Vocation

In an edited extract from his chapter in The British Study of Politics in the Twentieth Century, Professor Brian Barry FBA considers how the study of politics in Britain became professionalized over the course of the last century. In contrast to other contributors to the volume who provide a wealth of information about the work done by British political scientists in the twentieth century, Professor Barry inspects not the product, but the producers.

umbers make a difference.The number of took the view that the only appropriate form of university teachers grew two and a half scholarly discourse was the book. And as late as N times between the turn of the century 1987, Elie Kedourie rejected a case for promotion and the outbreak of the Second World War. It then based (in addition to a book) on a number of increased fourteen-fold between 1939 and 1991. articles in leading journals such as the American Since then, numbers have continued to increase in Political Science Review with an expressive shrug and response to a rapid growth in student numbers, the single word ‘Articles!’. despite declining funding per student.As far as the study of politics in particular is concerned, in The peculiarity of politics is highlighted by a 1950, a ‘rather relaxed community of about a comparison with sister disciplines of economics hundred scholars formed the membership of the and philosophy. The Economic Journal and Mind Political Studies Association’. This figure can be both began publication around 1890, and provided compared with the current PSA membership of a forum for technically demanding work.Yet the around 1,100 (to which must be added a number of British academics in these subjects was proportion of the 900 members of the British comparable to the number in politics. We may International Studies Association). A discipline reasonably ask how those other disciplines would with a hundred or so members must behave in a have progressed if articles had had to be accessible different way from one with over a thousand, and to anyone with a professed interest in the subject, the study of politics in the first half of the century, regardless of their background. The crucial before the founding of the PSA, is markedly difference appears to be that economics and different from the second half. philosophy both had a core of technique, and, even though postgraduate qualifications were a rarity, The most striking feature of the study of politics teachers had at least normally studied those in Britain in the first half of the century is its very subjects as undergraduates. This enabled the weak tendency to disciplinary boundary- content of the curriculum to become over time maintenance. Jack Hayward reminds us that not more arcane, accessible only to those with an only had British academics managed until 1950 increasingly specialized background. Teachers of without a professional association, but even then politics failed in the first half of the century to they thought only that an annual meeting ‘ought make even an undergraduate qualification in the to be possible’ and the ‘publication ... perhaps even subject a requirement. of a journal’ might be considered. There were journals for academics to publish in before the One index of the professionalization of the founding of Political Studies in 1953, but they subject, since the foundation of the PSA, is the way catered for a readership that was quite largely in which the PhD has ceased to be an option, outside academia; indeed, in 1923, the first year in regarded in some quarters with deep suspicion, which Public Administration was published, only ten and become a virtual necessity for the acquisition per cent of the articles were written by academics. of a permanent appointment.This change did not I surmise that the hesitation about starting a occur until a long way into the second half of the journal arose not so much from financial worries century. When I proposed to do a doctorate in as from doubts about the possibility – or perhaps 1958 it was explained to me that doctorates were even the desirability – of encouraging academics only for people with something to hide – the to publish articles addressed primarily to their words used by Sir Isaiah Berlin that have stuck in peers. my memory – such as a second-class degree from a first-rate institution or any sort of degree from a I have no way of showing the pervasiveness of the second-rate institution. If control over recruitment early hostility to the article as a mode of academic is critical to the maintenance of any guild, we can communication. However, I can offer some say that in this respect professionalization has now anecdotal evidence from the LSE. Reginald been achieved. Admittedly, politics is still more Bassett, one of the senior founders of the PSA, hospitable to those with doctorates outside the PUBLICATIONS 33 subject than its sister disciplines (a phenomenon rave references for all his protégés, regardless of that is also observable in the United States and their merits: he was accused by those aware of this elsewhere), but to a great extent academics are foible of ‘crying swan’. A solid appreciation of now reproducing themselves within the discipline. Association Football made up for a lot, with another powerful personage, in the way of lack of Another aspect of professionalization is the academic talent.A third was thought to place little tendency to address fellow academics rather than weight – if anything perhaps a negative weight – interested outsiders.The explosion of journals in all on publication, and his own record and that of his branches of the discipline in Britain since the 1970s protégés seemed to support this. means that publication – and for the most part publication addressed in the first instance to other As late as the end of the 1970s I was interviewed academics – has become the professional norm. for a chair at a quite well-regarded provincial university by a committee consisting of several Here again, the change occurs mostly in the local councillors and businessmen, plus an second half of our period, as a new (and larger) assortment of professors from around the cohort moved in to the system and progressed university. I shall say of the occasion only that the through the ranks.Thus, when the British Journal of pen of a Tom Sharpe would be required to do it Political Science (founded in 1971) had been justice. running for a couple of years,Tony King and I, its first two editors, were struck by the absence of Entertaining as the study of what F.M. Cornford contributions from senior academics in Britain.To called the ‘peculiarities of powerful persons’ may find out what was going on, we commissioned a be, it should not conceal the more important count of articles in all journals by British systematic point that such persons existed. Over a academics of the rank of senior lecturer and above, period around five years either side of 1980 – no which showed that very few were publishing doubt at an uneven pace across the whole of the articles anywhere: we were not being singled out higher education system – the old ways fell into for neglect. Of course, this finding still requires disrepute. It came to be felt that appointments and interpretation.Were we looking at a cohort whose promotions must be made on grounds that could members eschewed journal publications stand up to public scrutiny. Numbers themselves throughout their careers, or was it that promotion surely made a difference here. As the number of led to putting away childish things such as articles? universities grew, the number of jobs and the I can only offer the guess that it was some of both. number of candidates increased, and the candidates came from an increasingly large and What have been the incentives facing academics heterogeneous set of institutions. It is scarcely to who have chosen to pursue a career in the study be wondered at if the previous cosy arrangements of politics, and how have they changed in the past broke down. A committee charged with half-century? Universities have maintained a appointments or promotions wishing to act in a uniform hierarchy of positions, but this stability way that is publicly defensible is virtually driven to conceals something approaching a revolution in giving a dominant role to publication. Once under the way in which promotions are made. In the way, the tendency to weight publications is 1950s and 1960s, a handful of powerful figures virtually self-reinforcing. For if all serious dominated appointments to chairs. Outsiders were candidates have publications, this puts appointing especially well placed to manipulate appointments committees in a good position to form a to chairs in those universities (the vast majority) in judgement of their relative merits, based on their which each department had a single professorial actual achievement, which leaves correspondingly head. Since only professors took part in the less room for sponsors’ speculation about the appointment of professors, and by convention a potential of candidates to determine decisions. professor could not play a part in his own replacement, the committee making the decision The implication is that the transformation in the necessarily contained no internal members with role of publication was already essentially complete any competence in the subject to be filled. In these by the time the Research Assessment Exercise circumstances, the criteria that formed the basis of (RAE) was introduced in 1986. Nonetheless, it recommendation had a profound effect on the must certainly have concentrated the minds of any pattern of appointments. Moreover, beliefs about remaining laggards. For while the RAE ratings of these criteria, even if unfounded, will have had departments did not affect their position directly, effects on the calculations of aspiring academics. It because any money earned on the basis of them was was widely held that one eminent professor wrote paid to their universities, the universities themselves 34 PUBLICATIONS

normally reacted by rewarding and punishing What all this has left out, of course, are the intrinsic departments within them for doing well or badly in awards of research – Rerum Cognoscere Causas, as the the RAE. This in turn gave those in departments motto of the LSE has it – as an end it itself. Max responsible for making or recommending Weber wrote of those who respond to the appointments and promotions strong incentives to academic calling most intensely as feeling that they pay a lot of attention to publication. are in the grip of ‘a demon who holds the fibres of their very lives’. Some who are driven by the desire The editor of Political Studies has recently to know will be satisfied to get things straight in remarked on the steadily rising number of their own heads. Others will wish to get it straight submissions to the journal and suggested as one in some written form, but be reluctant to go explanation ‘a different, more “publication through the additional efforts required to get it into focused” culture among the more recent members publishable form. Even those who have publication of the profession’. Setting aside appointments and in mind may prefer to wait until an entire large- promotions, highly visible publication is the key to scale project is completed before letting it see the rewards that lie outside an academic’s own light of day. But for better or worse (in many ways department or institution. These include worse, no doubt), this is incompatible with the invitations to present papers at conferences in emergent professional norm, not to mention the (sometimes) interesting places, membership in exigencies of the RAE.Among the reasons (a list of international networks, and successful competition which is circulating on the Internet) explaining for externally-awarded research funding. It may be why God would not obtain tenure at a major said, with some justice, that playing this particular American university is one that runs: ‘Sure, He game is not everybody’s idea of a good time. created the world, but what has He done lately?’. However, the conjecture offered here is that the The academic anxious to be in the swim had better choice of playing it or refraining is less and less a have done something lately. matter of personal taste. Conformity to this model is increasingly regarded as what makes for a successful academic career – almost as much Brian Barry is Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of among those who are not successful on this Philosophy and Political Science at Columbia criterion as among those who are. University (New York). PUBLICATIONS 35

Past, Present, Proust

In an extract from the Centenary Monograph produced by the Academy’s Philosophy Section, The Arguments of Time, edited by Dr Jeremy Butterfield FBA, Professor Gregory Currie considers whether fiction can tell us anything about time. His chapter is entitled ‘A Literary Philosophy of Time?’ and here he takes a case study from Proust.

he work most often cited as a source of memory, and perhaps to enter imaginatively into literary ideas about time is Proust’s In Search Marcel’s experience, thereby gaining an Tof Lost Time. In the final volume, Marcel, experience like his. And then the question would reclusive, disillusioned with literature and with life, be: do we find in this reflective-cum-imaginative visits the house of the Duke de Guermantes.As he projection grounds for accepting Marcel’s arrives, his mood is lifted by a series of apparently conclusions? Let’s take a closer look at the second trivial experiences – the impression of a paving of the three philosophical conclusions that Marcel stone beneath his foot, a sound, the touch of a draws, the one about time: that involuntary napkins – on which he reflects while waiting to memory discloses the existence of a timeless join the company. These experiences, like his essence which each one of us possesses and which earlier taste of the cake dipped in tea, bring a joyful experiences the fusion of temporal moments indifference to the vicissitudes of fate and reveal outside time. It is by some distance the least themselves as recollections of past places and plausible of his conclusions. It is antecedently events. An involuntary memory, quite unlike the improbable, since the weight of evidence lifeless photographic recollections we actively (especially the evidence we now have) tells us that summon, has recreated the past in the present; so we are biological beings wholly part of the natural, Marcel concludes. From this he draws three temporal order. It suffers from at least the suspicion further consequences, ethical, metaphysical and of incoherence, because this atemporal being (or aesthetic.The first is that if we think life trivial, we atemporal part of Marcel’s being) seems to be judge it so on the evidence of active memory, capable of acting at a particular moment, the time which ‘preserves nothing of life’, whereas we immediately before Marcel’s entry to the should use the evidence of ‘life itself’, namely that Guermantes mansion. And the experience that provided by involuntary memory. The second is Marcel bases his conclusion on is in fact very poor that such moments disclose the existence of a support for that conclusion. What, for example, timeless essence which each one of us possesses makes Marcel so sure that the experience is that of and which experiences the fusion of temporal a fusion of past and present in a timeless being, moments from outside time.The third is that such rather than merely the activation in the present of experiences, because they bring the past to life, a memory trace – certainly a very lively one – of allow an otherwise impossible but aesthetically a past event? It’s not just that Marcel’s memory desirable combination. For in such a case might be deceptive; I hope we all accept that imagination, which is otherwise bound to absent memory can be vivid but illusory. Rather, there things, can combine with a lively impression of the just doesn’t seem to be anything in the memory presentness of what is in fact past. experience itself that Marcel describes which would suggest the outlandish metaphysics he These, anyway, are Marcel’s conclusions. But subscribes to. As an example of the philosophy of Marcel is a creature of fiction, and it is strictly time in a literary context, this is disappointing. speaking true only that it is fictional that he draws these conclusions. What are we supposed to take from this? Perhaps we should see in this episode an Gregory Currie is Professor of Philosophy at Flinders invitation to reflect on our own experience of University, Adelaide, Australia. 36 INTERNATIONAL

From the Foreign Secretary

The Foreign Secretary, Professor Nicholas Mann FBA reflects on his first months in office.

he President was good enough to com- Latvia, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia; ment, at the September 1999 meeting of for good measure the annual meeting of the Royal TCouncil, that the new Foreign Secretary had Society’s European Science Exchange Programme ‘hit the ground running’. It seems to me that I (of which the afternoon session is the province of have hit the ground flying: the new season of the Academy) was this year held in Slovakia, in the diplomatic activity took me, and Jane Lyddon, to neo-gothic castle of Smolenice, some 50 km from four countries in as many weeks. The principal Bratislava, which was formerly a rest-home for motive for this almost frenetic flurry was the exhausted Eastern Bloc academicians. formal renewal of the Academy’s existing Exchange Agreements with the Academies of The formal signing ceremonies, and the different manners of laying out tables and flags, and disposing persons, for them, would provide a fertile field for a structural anthropologist.An early acquaintance with the works of Claude Lévi- Strauss left me with a rich appreciation of cultural differences, and of varieties of formality and solemnity, but also, in all seriousness, of the overwhelming welcome extended by our hosts, their commitment to the development of the Agreements, and, especially in the Baltic States, the real need for the kind of assistance that the Academy can provide. There was, furthermore, a not very hidden agenda to the visits: to gain as much information as possible about academic structures and needs in the countries concerned, and to discuss fruitful ways of extending collaboration beyond the Above: The Foreign Secretary, Professor Nicholas Mann FBA, and Professor J Velemínsk´y, Deputy Director of the Board of International Cooperation, sign the traditional confines of the Exchanges, which are Agreement between the British Academy and the Czech Academy of Sciences, watched by habitually out of balance (though happily in the (L–R) Dr M Mráz (Director of the Philosophy Institute), Mr A Magala (desk officer, British exchanges), Professor V Herold (Head of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences), Ms J Lyddon (Assistant Secretary, British Academy), Professor F S˘mahel FBA (Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies, Prague) and Mr PWH Brown (Secretary, British Academy). Professor Juri Engelbrecht, President of the Estonian Academy of Below: Copies of the British-Czech Agreement are exchanged as Mr Magala, Dr Sciences, and the Foreign Secretary sign the new Agreement in the Herold, Ms Lyddon, Professor S˘mahel and Mr Brown look on. grand hall of the Estonian Academy,Tallinn. INTERNATIONAL 37

The Foreign Secretary and Dr Dus˘an Ková´c (Scientific Secretary of the Slovak The President of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, Professor J Stradinç ˘s, and the Academy of Sciences) sign the new British-Slovak Agreement at Smolenice Castle, Foreign Secretary exchange signed Agreements, watched by (L–R) Dr D S˘veica watched by Dr I Horváth (Head of the Foreign Relations Department, Slovak (Head of the International Department), Ms I Skr¢-vele (responsible for British Academy) and Mr PWH Brown (Secretary of the British Academy). exchanges) and HE Stephen Nash, the British Ambassador.

direction of those most in need). In pursuit of this is clear, however, that the new-found ability of the purpose, we were able, between Riga, Tallinn, Overseas Policy Committee to fund a variety of Tartu, Prague and Bratislava, to pay formal visits to joint activities presents a real chance to diversify nine Institutes or university departments, one the Academy’s role, to promote the research of university library and one university museum, and younger scholars, and to forge new relations where thereby to gain considerable insight into both the they can be of real value. problems and, as it is usual to say these days, the opportunities facing our hosts. Whereas in some countries the old Soviet model of the monolithic Academy of Sciences with a cast of thousands distributed across numerous client-institutes has been maintained, it appears more usual for the national Academies to divest themselves of their institutes and to revert to the role of learned societies, sometimes (as for example in Estonia) endowed with an advisory role to Government. At the level of individual disciplines, in so far as these were represented by the Institutes that we visited, it was noteworthy that philosophers were both the most eager to engage in collaboration with foreign partners, and at the same time The President of the Estonian Academy of Sciences and the perhaps the best equipped to do so by reason of Foreign Secretary toast future their existing networks of international contacts. It British-Estonian relations. 38 INTERNATIONAL

Overseas Policy

n his first six months as Foreign Secretary, to serve as the Academy’s representative on the Professor Nicholas Mann has visited Latvia, ESF Asia Committee. The Academy is at present IEstonia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to participating in three programmes, Cultural renew Exchange Agreements with the Academies Exchange in Europe, c.1400 – c.1700; Musical Life in of Sciences in these countries. His account of these Europe 1600–1900: Circulation, Institutions, journeys appears on page 36 of this Review.A Representation; and the work of the Asia Committee. number of other Exchange Agreements are due It has also agreed to provide funding for the for renewal as part of an ongoing review of programme on Changing Media – Changing Europe, activities, and, in each case, efforts are being made due to begin during 2000. to increase support for collaborative projects, and to encourage collaborative research between The annual meeting of partner organisations in the British and foreign scholars. European Exchange Scheme, held in Bratislava in October 1999 (and referred to by the Foreign Partnership funding: new Secretary in his report), provided, as usual, a opportunities valuable opportunity for the discussion of matters of general concern among academies and research The Overseas Policy Committee has been councils from a range of countries throughout considering the possibility of entering funding Europe. Although the Academy’s links with partnerships with other appropriate bodies, and partner academies and research councils in West has agreed to work with the Association of Europe are largely informal, the annual European Commonwealth Universities (ACU) on a scheme Exchange Scheme meeting offers an opportunity to offer grants for one or two years for to discuss new programmes and ways of collaborative projects between British scholars and collaboration, as well as developing the personal scholars in a Commonwealth university outside links which facilitate exchange programmes. the UK. This scheme is being advertised by the ACU, with applications sought by a closing date of The Academy is seeking to develop closer links 31 May 2000. with the European Union.While it is unlikely that the Academy will itself wish to seek EU funding Negotiations are also in progress with the or to disseminate information on EU funding Research Support Scheme in Prague, which is possibilities – this is already done both by the UK funded by the Soros Foundation, to offer support Research Office (UKRO) based in Brussels, and for joint research projects involving British by individual universities in the UK – a greater scholars and scholars from countries within the awareness of policy issues under discussion in RSS remit (that is Central Europe, Eastern Brussels, and more involvement in the decision- Europe, and countries of the former Soviet making processes, in conjunction with other Union). The Academy is also making plans to European partners, may prove beneficial for the organise a joint conference with the Japan Society humanities and social sciences. for the Promotion of Science in 2001. At a meeting in December the Overseas Policy International organisations Committee considered applications for inclusion in its various exchange programmes. The The Academy has appointed Professor William Committee also considered applications for Joint Doyle FBA to serve, from January 2000, as Activities and Networks, and made a total of seven Professor Derek Beales’s successor as its awards for Joint Activities and four awards for the representative on the European Science new Network grants. Details are given in the lists Foundation Standing Committee for the of grants on the Academy’s web site, accessed via Humanities. Professor Christopher Howe, of the www.britac.ac.uk. School of Oriental and African Studies, has agreed INTERNATIONAL 39

British Schools and Institutes Overseas and Sponsored Societies

he Academy’s sponsored Institutes and BIAA £315 000 Societies have continued to be active in a BSA £510 000 variety of ways over the course of recent T BIEA £234 000 months, including conferences, lectures, taught BSAI £40 000 courses and major fieldwork projects.A number of BIPS £55 000 monographs and journals published by the BSR £772 000 individual organisations have also appeared. The EES £87 000 total grant-in-aid budget for the institutes and SLS £60 000 societies in 1999/2000 was £2,815,000, and a SSAS £70 000 chart indicating the Academy’s grant-in-aid to CSEAS £65 000 individual institutions is shown right. CBRL £350 000 Recent conferences have included The Qajar CBA £231 750 Epoch, Art, Architecture and Culture which was Reserve £25 250 hosted in September by the British Institute for Persian Studies in association with the Iran Heritage Foundation. In Rome, a conference on the work of Sir Edwin Lutyens, who contributed Institutes or Societies. For example, the British The following research designs for the British School at Rome’s building, Institute of Archaeology at Ankara has continued bodies are supported by was hosted by the School in October. to support work at Çatalhöyük, (see illustration the Academy: the British overleaf) and has also undertaken a third season Institute of Archaeology at In London, lectures at the British Academy during of survey in northern Anatolia (Project Ankara, the British School the latter half of 1999 have included the following: Paphlagonia), although a planned season of survey at Athens, the British Heat and Dust: Excavations at Germa (Fezzan) and excavation on the Anastasian Wall had to be Institute in Eastern Africa, 1997–1999 by Professor David Mattingly (Society cancelled in the aftermath of the huge earthquake the British School of for Libyan Studies); We came back to Chagar Bazar: which hit Turkey in August. The BIAA has also Archaeology in Iraq, the renewed excavations 1999 by Dr Augusta McMahon been involved in a survey to assess damage to British Institute of Persian (British School of Archaeology in Iraq); Persia and archaeological sites caused by the earthquake. Studies, the British Scool the European Powers after World War I by Professor Fieldwork supported by the British School at at Rome, the Egypt Yann Richard (British Institute of Persian Studies); Athens has included projects at Sparta, Agia Exploration Society, the and How to visit the City of Rome: new interests and Kyriaki (Melos), Villa Dionysus (Knossos), Nea Society for Libyan studies, approaches at the turn of the millennium by Professor Roda and the Kophinas Minoan peak sanctuary. the Society for South Alastair Small (British School at Rome). Work has also continued on the British School at Asian Studies, the Committee for South East Rome’s Tiber Valley project, which studies the The British Institute at Ankara has recently Asian Studies, the Council changing landscape of the region from 1000 BC established a new summer course in the for British Research in the to AD 1300 and now involves scholars from a Archaeology of Anatolia for undergraduates from Levant and the Council for number of British and Italian institutions.The first UCL, led by the Director Dr Roger Matthews. British Archaeology Meanwhile, under its new Director Dr Paul Lane, phase of a new interdisciplinary project entitled the British Institute in Eastern Africa has ‘Mapping Rome’ was completed in December undertaken a variety of new initiatives which have 1999. The British Institute in Eastern Africa has helped to raise the Institute’s profile and reputation also been involved with two interdisciplinary amongst local institutions. These include a joint projects in conjunction with local scholars: the seminar scheme run with IFRA (the French first concerns environmental history, Iron Age Institute for Research in Africa) in Nairobi. settlement and soil erosion in Tanzania, and the second is a study of changes and continuity in Work on a number of major archaeological settlement organisation and distribution in fieldwork projects has continued over the course Nyanza Province. Meanwhile, the Egypt of recent months, under the auspices of individual Exploration Society continues to support work 40 INTERNATIONAL

on its four core fieldwork projects at the major investigates the prehistory and history of sites of Qasr Ibrim, Amarna, Sais and Memphis. human/rainforest interactions in Sarawak. Projects currently aided by the Society for South Fieldwork in Libya continues at Fezzan and Asian Studies include the Bannu project, which is Euesperides, and it is hoped that the renewal of full now focussing on Akra, and the Sri Lankan diplomatic relations in 1999 will enable the Archaeometallurgy Project, involving a survey of Society for Libyan Studies to expand its cultural ancient wind powered smelting sites. The links in the region. Similarly, the improvement in Committee for South-East Asian Studies, relations with Iran has meant that the British meanwhile, has continued to provide support for a Institute for Persian Studies has been able to number of major projects throughout the area, increase the level of its activities in the region, and both archaeological and non-archaeological, in it has now re-opened its Library to local university particular the Niah project in Borneo which staff and graduate students. Meanwhile the British

Çatalhöyük : A Neolithic Anatolian tell. About 9000 years ago early farmers settled at studying early sedentary and ‘urban’ life through its Çatalhöyük, building small, densely packed, wealth of well preserved plant and animal remains rectangular mudbrick houses, accessible via roof offering valuable information on early domestication openings. It was home to 5,000–10,000 people, and agriculture.Within the houses a complex society with old houses being infilled and new ones with highly organised spatial order is being revealed; constructed on top thereby creating the 20 metre high the dead were buried beneath the floors, some mound seen today. spanning two to three generations. The site achieved international acclaim in the early Latest technology is being used for analysis, 60s when first excavated by James Mellaart for its interpretation and conservation of this site (pictured 2/3 dimensional art in the houses. The current above). On-site facilities have been built to project, begun in 1993 under the direction of accommodate the large international team Professor Ian Hodder FBA and the BIAA, is undertaking the work and using the research centre. INTERNATIONAL 41

School of Archaeology in Iraq has undertaken the Societies), which is attended by representatives of preparation of a Nimrud database, incorporating all the Institutes and Societies as well as by the all registered objects from 13 seasons of BSAI members of BASIS, took place at the Academy in excavations. It also continues to be involved in November. This year, participants were invited to excavations at Tell Brak and at Chagar Bazar. comment on a number of issues relating in general to the work of the overseas institutions, including The Council for British Archaeology continues its funding for archaeological fieldwork, involvement in its four key areas: research, opportunities for research support from the EU, conservation, education and communication. Its and health and safety issues relating to fieldwork new Director, Mr George Lambrick, formerly of overseas, as well as ways in which Institutes and the Oxford Archaeological Unit, took up his post Societies might seek to embrace a wider range of in October 1999.The CBA also supports the work disciplines. The Forum also discussed ways in of the British and Irish Archaeological Bibliography which to raise the profile of the Institutes and which has recently moved into an office in the Societies in the UK, for example by a series of British Academy’s building. conferences or exhibitions, and by taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the The Council for British Research in the Levant is World Wide Web. Many of the Institutes and also in a period of development and change, Societies have recently developed very impressive following the appointment of its new Honorary pages within the Academy’s own web site, giving Secretary, Dr Mark Whittow, and of the new details of their activities including lectures, Director in Amman, Dr Bill Finlayson, who took publications, fieldwork programmes and grant up his post in December 1999.The CBRL merger schemes in support of research. Committee also met for the last time in December, thereafter to be replaced by a Council, Representatives of the Institutes and Societies also which will include several members of the original had the opportunity after the Forum to meet committee. Meanwhile the CBRL’s Jerusalem briefly with the members of BASIS designated as Officer has organised a series of lectures and work- their assessors, in order to discuss issues of shops throughout the region in the course of particular relevance to their organisation, and this recent months, aimed at establishing the role of the was agreed to have been a useful exercise. A organisation. It continues to support major field programme of visits by assessors to individual activities including work at Gaza,Wadi Faynan and institutions is also planned, commencing in Jezreel. 1999/2000, with the aim of familiarising assessors with the organisations and of following up issues The annual meeting of the BASIS Forum (BASIS arising from the Wilson Review which was is the Board for Academy-Sponsored Institutes and carried out in 1994/95. 42 RESEARCH

Research Awards

Extracts from reports uring the period August to December participating directly in the latter conference, and, recently received on work 1999, the Grants Committee made just in association with the Public Understanding and undertaken with the help Dunder 200 awards in the research and Activities Committee, will be organising a ‘strand’ of Academy grants can be conference grants schemes.The range and variety on one of the days of the conference, dealing with found on page 46. of work to be undertaken has continued to be the organisation of Victorian intellectual life. broad, and the full list of successful applications can be found on the Academy’s web site via Consultation www.britac.ac.uk. Some research projects require The extensive consultation exercise initiated by only a modest amount of funding to enable the Grants Committee on the scope of the significant progress to be made: for example a Academy’s research support has now closed. Some grant of £690 enabled Dr J P Wild to carry out 120 subject associations and learned societies have fieldwork in the important site of Berenike in been consulted, as well as the Academy’s Egypt, where finds of Indian textiles have thrown Humanities and Social Sciences Groups, and entirely new light on early Indian textile Section Standing Committees. Separately,a cohort production, and a little-known aspect of Romano- of 240 previous award-holders has been surveyed. Indian trade. Others need a more substantial The Grants Committee is charged with analysing injection of funds, and awards of the order of the results, and any revisions to the Academy’s £3,000–4,000 have been made, typically to fund schemes will be announced in early summer, to sustained periods of research abroad. As an take effect from the next academic session, example of what may be achieved even with the 2000–01. Early indications showed that there was relatively modest sums available under the small strong support for small grants, with the current grants scheme, Jonathan Del Mar reports (opposite) upper limit of £5,000 for individual awards. Most on his work on editing a complete new version of respondents urged that provision for these awards, Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies. if it could not be increased, at least be ring-fenced at the current level of £1.5 million p.a.There was The demand for conference grants has fluctuated. support also for the introduction of a scheme to Initially, there was heavier demand for grants to provide an intermediate level of funding, between support British Conferences, but latterly the £5,000 and £20,000, to fill the gap between the volume of applications for Overseas Conference Academy’s small grants, and the large project Grants has picked up significantly.It may be that it grants offered by the AHRB and ESRC. A full has taken a little while for the academic report on the results of the consultation will be community to become fully aware that the scheme made available in due course. for Overseas Conference Grants in the humanities (suspended by the HRB) has been reinstated. In Publications the period covered by this Review, 83 conference 33 books resulting from previous grants have been grants have been awarded. The Committee has received, and 24 articles. These are in the process approved support for two major congresses taking of being catalogued and will be lodged in the place in future years: the Academy is pleased to be Library in due course. Subject matter ranges from associated with the International Geographical Regional Mycenaean Decorated Pottery to Chinese Union Congress which will be held in Glasgow in Wills under the Law of Hong Kong; from An 2004 (the conference was last held in the UK forty introduction to the work of Peter Sellars to years ago); and with a ‘special occasion’ conference Parliamentary foreign policy in democratic Poland; and commemorating the centenary of Queen from Naval Strategy and Policy in the Mediterranean Victoria’s death, Locating the Victorians.The Modern to The Caribbean-born population in 1990s Britain: History Section of the Academy is also who will return? RESEARCH AWARDS 43

New Urtext Edition: Beethoven Symphonies 1–9

Jonathan Del Mar began his work of compiling new Urtext Editions of the nine Beethoven Symphonies in 1995. Until now the edition most commonly used by orchestras has been the Breitkopf & Härtel, made as long ago as 1862–4, and the past four years’ research will result in the first complete scholarly edition of the Symphonies since that date.The method of research normally uses as a base the standard Breitkopf score, comparing this in every detail with all surviving sources, primarily from facsimiles and paper copies of microfilms; specific queries are then checked against the original manuscripts, held in repositories all over Europe.This project has been supported throughout the period by small research grants from the British Academy, and the final symphony, No.7, will appear in June 2000. Here Jonathan Del Mar reports on the preparation of Symphony No.5, which was published in November 1999.

n many ways, the Fifth Symphony was the most work were gained; but the repeat problem scary of all to research. Over the last 30 years remained elusive. or so, several studies of the Fifth have been I And then, sitting at my desk at home one evening published, highlighting a quantity of details in the authentic sources, yet the chief problem, whether at midnight, I was blessed with inspiration. or not Beethoven intended a full repeat of the Suddenly it dawned on me what the missing link scherzo and trio (making in effect a five-part was: a detail in the duplicate first performance movement, like Symphonies 4, 6 and 7), has parts which proved that they were copied from the remained intractable. To publish yet another Stichvorlage score (now lost, sadly destroyed in edition, but still to have to admit defeat over this 1943 in the bombing of Leipzig). As these crucial issue, was a depressing prospect. performance parts included the repeat (all written out in full), this proves that the Stichvorlage – until Meanwhile, the other problem facing the editor of now assumed not to have included the repeat – was the Fifth Symphony is that Beethoven’s autograph copied with the repeat (which we know is one of the most, if not the most, fearsome and Beethoven had originally stipulated), and was even tortuous of all his manuscripts where the sent in this state to the publishers. Only there were deciphering of every detail of the text is all the pages containing this written-out repeat concerned. Even the fine 1942 facsimile is in bodily excised, an operation which could only countless places inadequate for the unravelling of have been carried out on Beethoven’s own all its complexities. Often the apparently instructions. This, together with two pieces of forbidding mass of deletions can simply be already known evidence (for example Beethoven’s brushed aside, and the valid text is clear enough; explicit correction, in a letter, of a mistake the but in some places, the sheer extent of revision and publishers made when they excised the repeat), correction causes a real problem in the makes the case as good as water-tight, and the disentangling of one detail or another of what Beethoven actually intended to stand. problem may at last be regarded as solved.At last, I felt the new Edition had justified its existence. With these two problems staring me in the face, I decided to abandon all compromise and tackle the Otherwise, the task was very much as usual, with beast head-on. Instead of studying photocopies, or the checking of all authentic sources. A trip to even the facsimile (a copy of which I was Vienna was necessary to document Beethoven’s incredibly lucky to procure), I booked a two-week hand-written corrections in the few first- trip to Berlin, and remained in the library there performance string parts surviving there; the from dawn to dusk every day, checking every corrections were written in red crayon, so are hard single detail from the original manuscript. This is to spot on photocopies, but are immediately quite certainly the first time that this manuscript evident in the original. More important was a visit has been checked in such detail since Beethoven’s to Prague, where all the wind and brass parts, first copyist wrote out the first performance score similarly corrected by Beethoven, are held in the from it back in 1808. Several entirely new textual Roudnice Lobkowicz collection, Nelahozeves features were revealed (including a new note Castle. Then, once the basic job of editing was where until now we have heard silence), and completed, all these trips had to be made once some essential insights into the gestation of the again in order to settle the final queries. 44 RESEARCH AWARDS

A page from the scherzo movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as it appears in the new Bärenreiter Urtext Edition. Highlighted in blue is the ‘new’ note discovered (in Beethoven’s autograph manuscript) in the course of intensive research into all the original sources for the work. RESEARCH AWARDS 45

The result of all this, then, is a Beethoven Fifth general celebratory cavorting instead of (as hardly different from that which we have always hitherto) chugging away on a repeated note.This known, but free of an appendage (the extra repeat last error was due to a misreading of one of in the scherzo) which had recently become almost Beethoven’s favourite types of ditto marks, often a ‘politically correct’, and therefore something of a source of ambiguity when deciphering the thorn in the flesh of those musicians who were manuscripts of this most idiosyncratic – but also convinced it was wrong but lacked the evidence to meticulous, and therefore particularly fascinating – substantiate their instinct. Otherwise, where of the great composers. discoveries are concerned, the new note in the scherzo mentioned above (bar 268, cellos) is Publication details amusing, but goes by in a flash; more significantly, perhaps, there are four bars in which the first Ludwig van Beethoven. Symphonies 1–9. Urtext. violins play with the woodwind instead of resting Edited by Jonathan Del Mar. (first movement, bars 325–326, 329–330); and Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1996–2000 most entertainingly, three bars (finale, bars (Full Score; Critical Commentary; Orchestral 309–311) where the cellos and basses join in the Parts; Study Score;Vocal Score of No.9) 46 RESEARCH AWARDS

Reports on Recent Work

he following examples are taken from progress reports The Geography of Unemployment in Britain: Persistence received during the period of this Review, on work funded and Change Tby the Academy.They give an indication of the range of Dr R.L. Martin was awarded a small research grant to support his direct activity supported. Some grants are awarded to enable essential research costs whilst he held a one year ‘Thank-Offering to Britain’ groundwork for a longer-term endeavour to be accomplished, Fellowship. (The Fellowship was endowed from the proceeds of a with the main fruits of the research expected further down the ‘Thank-you Britain Appeal’, initiated by the Association of Jewish Refugees as a mark of gratitude to Britain for its provision of a home line. Such projects may have a gradually phased output in terms for Jews persecuted by the Nazi regime.) Dr Martin used his research of publication or other dissemination. Other projects are grant to purchase and process datasets. His study considered how the designed with a more immediate outcome in mind, where incidence of unemployment has varied between different regions and publication, often in article form, can be expected within a different localities across Britain between 1970 and the present. One relatively short period of the primary research being completed. amongst many of his findings demonstrated that joblessness in some areas, particularly the traditionally high-unemployment areas, has come Conferences, of course, have their natural flowering in a one-off to be underestimated owing to the substantial increase in the number of occasion, which may or may not result in published proceedings adult members of the labour force registered as sick (which takes them in due course. off the official unemployment statistics).The perceived narrowing of the spatial unemployment disparities since the end of the 1980s may Research Grants therefore be misleading. Dr Martin concludes that, in combination, his findings on a number of Archaeological investigation of a Cromwellian shipwreck off factors demonstrate that the changes in the local geographies of Duart Point, Mull unemployment have more to do with shifting incidence of economic As a Scottish-based scholar, Dr C.J.M. Martin was awarded a grant development and net job creation than with local problems of labour through the Academy’s Transitional Fund (pending the fully UK-wide market inflexibility. Dislocations caused by uneven economic coverage of the AHRB, which has since been achieved). The project restructuring and development – increasingly determined by external involved the excavation of part of a small Cromwellian warship lost in a global pressures – are the fundamental factor behind the continuities and storm in 1653, while suppressing a royalist revolt in the West Highlands. changes in the map of unemployment. The ship was rediscovered in 1979 and is now designated a ‘protected Several publications have emanated from the research, and others are in wreck’. Documentary research has identified the wreck as that of the preparation, including a book on Labour Market Geography for Polity Press. Dr Swan, a vessel built for Charles I in 1641.The ship was copied from a Martin is Reader in Economic Geography at the University of Cambridge Flushing privateer in an attempt to counter piracy in the Channel approaches and the Irish Sea. She may therefore be seen as a very early Giotto’s design of the Arena Chapel, Padua prototype of the frigate. Dr L. Jacobus was awarded a research grant to investigate the design A two-month season took place in the summer, the Academy’s grant history of the Arena Chapel, clarifying the relationships between the providing funds for diving time and post-excavation study. Some 121 building and the frescoes within it. Dr Jacobus’s preliminary researches finds and samples were delivered to the National Museums of Scotland. indicated that there were at least three changes to the design of the Two items of exceptional importance were noted: a substantially building at its east end, and each of these changes had implications for complete naval guncarriage, and an elegant panelled door, apparently the design of the frescoes. Following detailed scrutiny of the Chapel in complete. The excavation of these items raises questions of two separate trips to Padua, and inspection of related archives, Dr archaeological methodology and subsequent treatment, and they will be Jacobus has been able to establish that Giotto was closely involved in the dealt with next summer; in the meantime, the area has been secured design of the architecture of the Arena Chapel and his design originally with sandbags for protection during the winter. included a stained glass window at the Chapel’s East End (soon replaced It is becoming evident that this small royal warship demonstrates the by a hinged panel, with an image of God the Father by another hand). same kind of lavish decorative extravagance as that with which the She has further established a case to suggest that the frescoes on the Sovereign of the Seas (another of Charles I’s ships) had been embellished chancel arch featuring scenes from the Annunciation were especially and which drew much contemporary criticism.The Swan wreck is thus designed to provide a visual accompaniment to the divine office a microcosm not only of contemporary naval architecture, warfare and celebrated on the Feast of the Annunciation (or Golden Mass). shipboard life, but of Charles I’s vision of his navy as an expression of Accounts survive of the ‘plays’ with music that were re-enacted on the kingly prestige. Feast day,and of the liturgical vestments worn by cleric-actors taking the A documentary on the Swan was recently shown on BBC 2. Interim reports and parts of the Angel and the Virgin. Details of costume and pose in Giotto’s articles have also been published in the International Journal of Nautical frescoes suggest that the figure of the Virgin Annunciate may be Archaeology and elsewhere. Dr Martin is Reader in Maritime Studies at the understood as an actor ‘performing’ in the Golden Mass.At other times University of St Andrews of the year, however, the fresco may be read unproblematically within RESEARCH AWARDS 47

the sequence of frescoes of The Life of the Virgin. Detailed examination The Past and Present of Leprosy of the effects produced by natural and artificial light falling on the A conference on the modern and archaeological contexts of leprosy was frescoes highlight certain aspects of the drama. In its original condition, held at the University of Bradford in the summer. The Academy gilded rays were scored into the plaster, radiating from around the Angel, provided assistance with the air fares to bring over three scholars from and pouring down on the Virgin Annunciate. Dr Jacobus suggests it is the Czech Republic, who would otherwise have been unable to attend. possible to reconstruct something of the Mass that took place.The Angel All three scholars have written in the most appreciative terms of the and the Virgin could be seen immediately below the window. Soon, opportunity to share their research with scholars from over 20 different choristers’ voices would be heard singing their dialogue, beginning with countries, from Russia, through Vietnam, to South America. They the words ‘Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum’.The morning light, showed how their researches related to archaeological data, and it was, pouring through the stained glass image of God the Father, would be indeed, under this aspect of the subject that the Academy’s backing had mystically transformed into a visual emanation of the Holy Spirit. been sought. Giotto’s figures became animated by sound and light, performers in a synaesthetic spectacle unlike any other Golden Mass. Dr Jacobus suggests Clinical leprosy, the medical and social history, palaeopathology, immunology, that her interpretation of the Annunciation enhances our understanding epidemiology and microbiology of leprosy were all represented at the congress.The not only of Giotto’s creative achievement in the design and decoration papers and posters will be published in due course. of the Chapel, but also of the ways in which medieval art could excite devotion in its beholders. Alfred the Great Eleventh-centenary Conference Dr Jacobus is a Lecturer in History of Art at Birkbeck College, London. She has On the occasion of the 1100th anniversary of Alfred’s death, the published four articles on the Arena Chapel, and is preparing a full-length book University of Southampton hosted a major interdisciplinary conference on the subject. reassessing his life and achievements. Contributions included new judgements about Alfred’s reign based on new metalwork and coin discoveries; and on new work on the laws and his translations. Scholars Conferences debated whether Alfred’s reign was characterised by continuity or Women and Brainpower innovation; whether he drew on insular precedents or continental exemplars. Some saw parallels between Alfred and contemporary Celtic, The British Academy provided a grant to help Royal Holloway present Frankish and Bulgarian rulers which probably owed as much to a conference focusing on women’s contribution to intellectual life.The common preoccupations and Biblical study as to direct contact and conference, organised by Professor P.J. Corfield, considered such exchange of ideas. The major gap which emerged was between those questions as whether there were essential, biologically-derived who were impressed with the immensity of Alfred’s achievements, and differences in brainpower between men and women, or whether their others who felt that there was a surface gloss which concealed botched roles were socially-constructed; whether the arrival of female and incomplete work, which might indicate that Alfred knew what he brainpower had changed the ethos of intellectual life and, if so, in what wanted to have done, but did not have the time or means to achieve it. ways; and whether J.S. Mill’s analysis was still the most relevant one: For example, the sense of purpose in the lawcode conflicts with its poor educating women simply doubled a nation’s intellectual capital. The internal organisation, which would have made it difficult to use in conference sought to answer not the Freudian question ‘What do practice. The differing views made for stimulating discussion, and the women want?’ but instead ‘How do women think?’ varying perspectives will be made available in the published proceedings. Contributions included discussions of the different ways in which The Chairman of the Conference, Professor Timothy Reuter, commented that the societies have dealt with the bodily dimension of women’s experiences, 1999 views of Alfred’s reign will not only be strikingly different from those for example how new mothers and post-menopausal women have been prevalent when his millenary was celebrated in 1901, but have developed regarded; the salons of eighteenth-century France; the presence of significantly from those aired at the 1100th anniversary of his accession in 1971. women in anti-vivisectionist movements and the range of Victorian explanations, from the ‘essentialist’ claims that women were sentimental hysterics, to celebrations of women’s sympathy with other oppressed groups (non-humans); and the opposition to higher education for women, amongst many other themes. The conference coincided with the 150th anniversary of the foundation of Bedford College for Women in 1849, and the opening of the new Bedford Centre for the History of Women. 48 RESEARCH AWARDS

Academy programmes to support advanced research 1999–2000

Research Appointments UK. In addition, block grants are available for learned societies/subject associations to support the attendance of scholars Research Professorships at conferences overseas. The scheme offers a prestigious series of awards, first offered in 1999. Awards are designed primarily for established scholars who International programmes have already published works of distinction in their field. Applicants should have a major programme of work which would Exchanges benefit from a sustained period of support. The Research The Academy provides opportunities, through exchange Professorship awards enable scholars to be relieved of their normal agreements with other Academies, research libraries and other teaching and administrative commitments for three years. research organisations for British scholars to carry out individual research programmes or to collaborate in joint programmes with Research Readerships and Senior Research Fellowships overseas scholars. Research visits (in either direction) are These schemes are aimed at established scholars in UK universi- supported, as well as attendance at joint seminars or conferences, ties who are in mid-career, having already published works of and the holding of workshops in connection with joint projects. distinction. Awards allow scholars to undertake or complete an The exchange programme may be particularly valuable for scholars approved programme of sustained research, while relieved of their wishing to work in countries where access might otherwise be normal teaching and administrative commitments. Readerships problematic. Logistic and other support in arranging a research are tenable for two years, and Fellowships for one. programme is available from the relevant partner organisation. Postdoctoral Fellowships Joint activities One of the Academy’s most popular schemes, this programme A special programme has recently been established to support enables outstanding younger scholars to obtain experience of international joint activities involving British scholars in research and teaching in the university environment, which will collaboration with foreign partners. The research programme strengthen their curriculum vitae and improve their prospects of should be clearly defined (not open-ended) and involve partners securing permanent posts by the end of the Fellowship. Awards from one or possibly two other countries. are tenable for three years. Networks Research Projects A new initiative has been developed to promote small networks of scholars from different countries meeting over a period of The Academy supports a series of major infrastructural research three to five years to work on particular issues or questions of projects, which are designated ‘Academy Research Projects’.This methodology.This scheme is intended to support research which programme is currently under review. In addition, the Academy is wide-ranging in scope, and broader than that for which the makes annual grants to collaborative international projects on ‘joint activities’ programme has been developed. behalf of the UK, and provides a substantial contribution to the New Dictionary of National Biography. Visiting Professorships and Fellowships This scheme enables distinguished scholars from overseas to be Research Grants invited to spend a minimum of two weeks in the UK. The Research grants are available to support the direct expenses of a main purpose is to enable the visitor to pursue research, but the research programme, such as travel and maintenance, consumables, delivery of lectures and participation in seminars is also allowed. specific IT costs excluding hardware, and certain pre-publication A British sponsor must apply on behalf of the overseas scholar. costs. The upper limit of award is £5,000. Following extensive British Academy Visiting Lectureships consultation with the academic community during 1999–2000, a number of adjustments will be made to the scope of the small This is another new scheme, and is designed to enable a limited grants scheme with effect from September 2000; and a new number of distinguished scholars from overseas (up to 4 a year) scheme for Larger Research Grants (over £5,000 and up to to be invited to spend around 2 weeks in the UK, to deliver a £20,000) will be introduced. Details will be issued shortly. lecture or series of lectures and/or seminars. Special international symposia and Meetings Conferences Funds are available to support the organisation of conferences or The Academy offers three main forms of support for conferences: symposia in the UK and/or overseas, usually organised jointly by Overseas Conference Grants, providing travel expenses for a British the Academy and another partner institution (in certain cases, a scholar to present a paper abroad; British Conference Grants, offer- foreign Academy or university must be involved). ing a contribution to the costs of conferences in the UK, particu- larly to assist with the costs of bringing key overseas speakers to participate in a conference held in Britain; and Major International Congress Grants, giving large grants to contribute to the adminis- Full details of the Academy’s programmes can be found on the web site trative expenses of running a major worldwide congress in the at www.britac.ac.uk/guide 49

Diary of Events Lectures marked take place at the British Academy at 5.30 pm and are freely open to the general public. There is no admission charge but because of limitations on space those wishing to attend are asked to inform Rosemary Lambeth on 020 7969 5264, or email: [email protected]. All those interested are also welcome to attend symposia marked , but for these meetings it is essential to register in advance. A small registration fee is charged for some events. Please contact Rosemary Lambeth for details about individual symposia.

Summer 2000 Autumn/Winter 2000 22 November THANK-OFFERING TO BRITAIN LECTURE 4 May 14–15 September The Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg Beginning in the Middle The European State and the Euro 4 December Professor P D Holland, Shakespeare Institute Conference organised by Professor Kenneth Dyson FBA Translators, Knowledge and Cultures SHAKESPEARE LECTURE One-day symposium addressing translation historic- 20–22 September 16 May ally as a process concerned with knowledge British Constitution in the Twentieth Century The Legend of the Great Game Workshops in preparation for a series of public 6–7 December Professor Malcolm Yapp, School of Oriental and lectures in 2002, and accompanying British Artefacts and Images of the Ancient World African Studies Academy ‘Centenary’ publication British Academy/Royal Society joint discussion ELIE KEDOURIE LECTURE meeting 29–30 September 17 May Prosopography in the twenty-first century: Late 12 December Wallace Stevens: Hypotheses and Contradictions Roman and Byzantine ‘Beowulf’ and perception Professor Helen Vendler, Harvard University International Colloquium Professor Michael Lapidge FBA WARTON LECTURE SIR ISRAEL GOLLANCZ MEMORIAL LECTURE 26 October 25–26 May KEYNES LECTURE IN ECONOMICS European Science Foundation Professor J. Sutton FBA Meeting of the Core Group of the Standing Spring/Summer 2001 Committee of the Humanities of the European 1 November Science Foundation ‘Till old experience do attain 23–24 February Wetland landscapes and cultural responses and To something like prophetic strain’: Two-day conference Meeting of Senior Administrators concerned with Revision and renewal in John Milton’s last poems the Humanities Dr Margaret Keane 10 March 7–8 July CHATTERTON LECTURE IN POETRY Bayes’ Theorem Humanities and Social Sciences Forum One-day discussion meeting 2 November Meeting of representatives of English-speaking White masculinity: Smuts, race and the South 11–12 May Academies, Learned Societies and Research African War Aerial Archaeology – into the future Councils. Professor Shula Marks FBA Two-day conference 8–9 July RALEIGH LECTURE IN HISTORY Rome and the Mediterranean World 12–15 July 3 November Locating the Victorians Conference to be held in Oxford and London Social Challenges Facing Britain Major international conference commemorating 150 12 July Seminar preliminary to a British Academy years since the Great Exhibition, and the centenary Science and its history as portrayed in literature and ‘Centenary’ publication in 2002 of Queen Victoria’s death. To be held at the Science the arts Museum and Imperial College, with collaboration 7 November Evening of readings and commentary with Professor from the Natural History and Victoria & Albert 4th annual BRITISH ACADEMY LECTURE John Carey FBA and Professor Sally Shuttleworth Museums. The British Academy will host a strand on Professor Amartya Sen FBA Part of ‘Science Communication, Education and the The structure of knowledge History of Science’ held during the day on 12 July at the Royal Society 50

Contacts at the British Academy

Central Administration 020 7969 5200 Secretary Mr P.W.H. Brown [email protected] PA to the Secretary Ms C. Cowell [email protected] Director of Administration Ms M. McCafferty [email protected] Human Resources Assistant Ms R. Clark [email protected] Facilities Manager Ms J. Caton [email protected] Facilities Assistant Ms A. Servais [email protected] Receptionist/Clerical Officer Miss J. Kenny [email protected] Porter/Handyman Mr B. Falconer [email protected] External Relations 020 7969 5263 External Relations Officer Mr J. Breckon [email protected] Fellowship Matters 020 7969 5259 Assistant Secretary Miss S.F. Churchill [email protected] Finance Office 020 7969 5214 Finance Officer Mr M. Wellby [email protected] Accounts Assistants Mr C.J. Clazie [email protected] Ms S Mgbor [email protected] Information Technology Services 020 7969 5213 IT Manager Ms V.E. Cassely [email protected] Computing Officer (PCs/LANs) Mr J. Khan [email protected] Computing Officer (UNIX/Databases) Mr A. McMahon [email protected] International Relations 020 7969 5220 [email protected] Assistant Secretary Ms J. Lyddon [email protected] Exchange Assistants Ms J. Vinson [email protected] Miss F. Danaher [email protected] Library 020 7969 5272 Assistant Miss S. Betts (50%) [email protected] Lectures and Symposia 020 7969 5264 Assistant Secretary Miss R.J. Lambeth (part-time) [email protected] Monitoring and Evaluation 020 7969 5268 Assistant Secretary Ms V. Hurley (50%) [email protected] Publications 020 7969 5216 pubs@britac.ac.uk Publications Officer Mr J.M.H. Rivington [email protected] Assistant Publications Officer Ms J. English [email protected] Research Grants 020 7969 5217 [email protected] Assistant Secretary Miss E. Ollard [email protected] Research Grants Assistants Miss R. Cutts [email protected] Mrs M. Brough (part-time) [email protected] Miss S. Betts (50%) [email protected] Research Posts and Academy Research Projects 020 7969 5265 Assistant Secretary Dr K. Emond [email protected] Schools and Institutes 020 7969 5267 Assistant Secretary Miss J.A. Leitch (part-time) [email protected] Web site Development 020 7969 5266 Ms H. Gardiner (part-time) [email protected] 51

From the Archive One hundred years ago

The first seed was sown of forming a national Academy to represent the humanities and social sciences. The following is the text of a letter sent by the Secretaries of the Royal Society to certain distinguished men of letters.

The Royal Society Burlington House,W. November 21, 1899 Sir, We are directed by the President and Council of the Royal Society to inform you that a project for the foundation of an International Association of Academies has been under consideration for some time.A preliminary gathering of representatives of the principal Academies of the world was held at Wiesbaden in the autumn of the present year [October 1899].The enclosed “Proposed Statutes of Constitution and Procedure” will inform you as to the resolutions adopted. It is probable that the first formal meeting of the Association will be held in Paris in 1900, and that the resolutions of the Wiesbaden Conference will then be formally accepted as the basis of the constitution of the Association. Until the meeting took place at Wiesbaden,it was uncertain whether the Association would be formed of Scientific Academies only; but, as you will see, it was decided to form two sections, the one devoted to Natural Science, and the other to Literature,Antiquities and Philosophy. Although the conditions which Academies claiming admission must fulfil were not formally defined, it is understood (1) that no Society devoted to one subject or to a small range of subjects will be regarded as an “Academy”, and (2) that, as a rule, only one Academy will be admitted from each country to the literary and scientific sections respectively. So far as we are aware, there is no Society in England dealing with subjects embraced by the “Literary” Section which satisfies the first of these conditions. It is therefore unfortunately the case that, as matters at present stand, the United Kingdom will only be represented on the Scientific Section. It is not for the President and Council of the Royal Society to suggest a remedy, but they wish the facts of the case to be laid before some eminent representatives of the branches of knowledge which would probably be included in the Literary Section. It might be possible for a number of Societies which are at present isolated to form some kind of union among themselves, which would constitute an Academy in the sense above defined. In the event of that or any similar project being satisfactorily carried out, the delegates of the Royal Society who attended the Wiesbaden Conference have reason to believe that the presence of British representatives on the “Literary Section” would be welcomed by their foreign confreres. We enclose a list of the names of the gentlemen to whom this letter is being sent, and we may add that if further information is wanted we shall be happy to give it, and that one or more of the delegates to the Wiesbaden Conference would be willing to attend any meeting which might be called to discuss the matters herein set forth. We are, Sir, Yours faithfully, [Sir Michael Foster and A.W.Rucker] Secretaries R.S. 52 FROM THE ARCHIVE

The persons who received that letter conferred with each other, and at a meeting held on 14 December 1899, drew up a statement of their views to be communicated to the Royal Society.

Soc.Antiq. Lond., Burlington House, Piccadilly,W., December 15, 1899 Gentlemen, In answer to your letter of the 21st November, 1899, I beg to inform you that, in accordance with the suggestion therein, a meeting was held in these rooms on 14th December, at which were present:The Rt. Hon.A. Balfour, Rt. Hon. James Bryce, the Lord Acton, Sir John Evans, Prof. Jebb, Rt. Hon.W.E. Lecky, Sir Alfred Lyall, Prof. Sidgwick, Sir Wm.Conway, Sir E. M.Thompson, Mr. Leslie Stephen, and myself.The other gentlemen suggested were unable to attend. It was carried unanimously that the meeting desired to thank the Royal Society for their courteous communication with regard to the formation of a British Academy, such as would come within the limits laid down in their letter, but that the idea of such an Academy formed by the simple federation of existing Societies was not one that appeared to meet the views of those present. I am, Gentlemen, Yours faithfully, [Lord] Dillon P. S . A .

This letter, along with a ‘Plan’ for a new Academy received from Professor Henry Sidgwick, would be considered by the Council of the Royal Society at its meeting on 18 January 1900.